Questions on being a "Qualified Real Estate Professional"

[Jason J.]

I had a question about being a "Qualified Real Estate Professional". I'd like to use Cost Segregation Studies on my commercial properties to offset income from my businesses. For 2021, I started to accurately log all of my landlord activity hours on a daily basis. I'm hoping to have enough hours by the end of the year to meet the requirements of being a "Qualified Real Estate Professional". I'd like to be able to do cost segregation studies on the properties to find a large amount of bonus depreciation to take as a large tax deduction against my 2021 income (including income from my businesses). From what I understand, this is possible by classifying my real estate income/loss as active instead of passive.

My question is: If I end up having enough hours and being classified as a "Qualified Real Estate Professional" for 2021 (thus claiming the bonus depreciation from the Cost Seg Studies), do I have to continue to meet the requirements of being a "Qualified Real Estate Professional" in 2022 and beyond? 

A little back story... I've been in commercial real estate for about 3 years. I plan on focusing a lot of my time in the next few years purchasing / developing commercial properties. In the long term (several years down the road with more properties), I plan on hiring a full time property manager to take over my position. Basically I'm not sure that if another bigger business opportunity would come down the road, that I'd want to spend less time on managing the properties.

So do I need it just for the years I'm claiming the big deductions, or does it need to be for the remainder of the time I'm claiming depreciation on the property?