The property in question in Illinois was my primary residence for 8 years. It took 10 months on the market (from June 2017 to April 2018) to sell, and I could not reap any profit during the time the home remained vacant (my homeowner's association mandated owner occupation only, so no ability to rent it out for those 10 months). In Illinois, we paid real estate tax for the previous year - i.e., the 2018 real estate tax bill covers FY2017. So at closing in April 2018, I had to pay ~$2900 for FY2017 taxes billed in 2018 (since I owned the property all year), plus a prorated ~$750 in taxes for FY2018 that the new owners of the property won't be billed for until later in 2019. Can I deduct these real estate tax payments from my FY2018 tax return? Of note, I did not earn any income in the state of Illinois in 2018, and the mortgage was fully paid off at the time I put it up for sale in June 2017 so I did not need to deduct mortgage interest.
I also sold the property in 2018 at a loss of what I paid for it in 2009 (not a huge loss - just a few thousand dollars). Is there deduction I can take for that?
Possibly complicating matters is that in 2017, I moved to Utah for work and bought a new home here, on which I deduct my mortgage interest and Utah real estate taxes from my tax return.
