Total Rental Properties Losses to offset capital gain of 2 rental homes being sold

[Alfredo Cardenas]

My CPA is telling me that I cannot use the sum of all my rental properties losses grouped together as one large loss to offset capital gains of the sale of 2 of those properties. He is saying that I can on only use the losses of each property again the capital gain of each property. Is he correct? Please advise

[Michael Plaks]

Quote from @Alfredo Cardenas:

...I am starting to believe that I need to learn the tax laws myself since I have lost so much money paying unnecessary taxes because my previous CPA's are not familiar with all laws or they just plug numbers into a software (without strategizing)...

... I just got married to a realtor (i can claim real state professional status in 2024 via my wife). I asked him if we can use that large combined losses being carried over to this year to offset my 2024 W-2 given that we can activate the real state profesional status this year to offset W-2 income without limitations. He also said no... 

Maybe you just need a tax pro specializing in real estate. There're 20+ of us on this forum. Learning some taxes on your own will always help, but understanding it at our level takes years.

In your second example, he is correct. Once you qualify for REPS, your current losses are unlocked but your past suspended losses remain locked.