W-2 income is more then 150k. How to qualify as RE professional?

[Lana Lee]

My husband's W-2 income is projected to be more then 150k. I've heard that it's not possible to take passive loss in that case. I am not employed currently and heard I can qualify as RE professional if certain amount of time is spent working in that area. How would I qualify without getting license. I heard I have to keep a journal or something to keep track of my RE activities, but don't really know any rules or the proper way to do it. We self manage. If anybod does that , please share your knowledge.

Thank you

[Chatree C.]

Hi Lana, hopefully filing tax jointly would allow you to do what you want if you can proof the hours you put into your real estate business. Check with your CPA as others said.

But what you can definitely start doing now is to keep all your activity history tracked. For example you can keep track of your schedule as calendar events, keep emails organized and should be coming from your name, perhaps when you talk RE with your spouse, you can take note of the topics as well, ideally make this more formal like you run a business and you’ll have a much easier time seeing if you can justify the hours need to claim RE professional status.