So then the property is "available for rent" year round then, right?
"we worry about the headache about getting some potentially desperate people"
I'm not aware of any law, rule or regulation that says you absolutely have to accept someone who applies to rent from you. But I'm in FL too, and for my rentals I conform to the laws of my state, as I'm sure you do for your state.
With your current plan, every year you're making the property available for rent say, May1st for example, and then converting it back to personal use on Oct 1 for example. So expenses incurred before May 1st and after Oct 1 are just flat out not deductible. Being that the off season is when you incur most of your expenses, don't have an off season "on the books". Keep it classified as a rental all year round.
Then during your off season you keep advertising it. The trick (and there's nothing illegal about it that I can find anywhere) is to make the advertised rent to high for anyone to be willing to pay it, without going overboard on that price. Then your advertising while it's vacant is your "proof" of it's availability.
If you normally rent for $1000/mo during the spring/summer early fall, then for the winter raise the advertised price to $1200/mo. Then if you do get a call for it at that price, I seriously doubt those enquiring would fall in the "trash renter" category. For me renting year round, I keep my price high enough to keep the "trash calls" down, but low enough to attract the type and class of renter I want living in the property.
If my price range fits yours, then what I would do is make my winter price absolutely no more than 25% above the price I know I can get. You don't want to go overboard on that for obvious reasons. Chances are, I'll get no calls. But the fact is, the property is "available for rent" and I can prove it by the fact the property is move-in ready and I've got a record of all my advertising renewals on craigslist, Zillow and rent.com. Oh, if someone does call and is willing to pay the higher price, show me the money, sign the contract, and here's the keys!
Oh, and so long as the property is available for rent, my advertising costs are deductible too. By keeping the property classified as a rental year round that makes all expenses incurred for the property throughout the year a rental expense.
Grab my notes all all this stuff at <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
http://burchrentals.ddns.net/Rentals/rental%20Property%20Management.docx">http://burchrentals.ddns.n...> It's still in rough draft (extremely rough) but a wealth of information. You'll be interested in chapter 11. But the whole thing is a wealth of information. I just gotta find the time to sit down and organize it better.
