Taxes for a soon to be own property

[Rodney Wright]

I'm purchasing my first property in a few days.  The process has been long and tedious.   It started in 2018 visiting a property out of state. Can I claim the mileage,  hotel stays and meals from 2018 eventhough the property will not be purchased until a few days from now?

[Natalie Kolodij]

Originally posted by @Dan Moore:

Purchased or not is not the question. Whether you are a RE professional is the question. 

Are you spending the needed 750 hours per year on real estate? Are you tracking your time spent on RE? There are a series of questions (easy Google search) that you need to be able to say yes to to qualify as a real estate professional. If you still have a W2 job then most likely the answer is no. If the answer is no then you are limited to deducting $3000 of expenses. 

If this is your first property then maybe 3k is all you need. If that is so, then deduct away. Sounds like you tracked your mileage and expenses. But to your question, you don’t have to own the property or have it rented to claim the deduction. The IRS actually understands that the work starts before the reward. 

Add in standard disclaimer about me not being a CPA or a lawyer. 

Uhhhhh RE Pro has literally nothing to do with this question. His expenses are still deductible. 

And if his AGI is under $150 they will still off set his ordinary income, if not they flow forward. 

Or if he has any other passive income, rental losses could offset those. 

The rest of your answer is also basically wrong. Please let tax pros answer tax questions if you're not sure on them. He can't deduct the expenses from before it was in service.