The mere fact that you are a contractor or you do things around your properties, doesn't necessarily mean you qualify with REP status. For example, if you work just a few hundred hours per year, you won't reach the minimum, no matter how good you are as a contractor.
To qualify with REP status, you must:
1) work at least 750 hours per year in the real estate business (clarification: you can have another activity, but real estate has to surpass 50% of your total work hours per year)
2) out of those 750+ hours, a minimum of 500 hours must be in what is "material participation" in the properties — it could be working on a repair, notifying tenants, going to the bank, showing a unit, etc...).
Two pieces of advice:
Count and document your hours. Don't lie. Be credible. In an audit, it would be very easy to notice if you are BSing the numbers. Document as you go (every day, ideally!); in two weeks, you won't remember what you were doing yesterday (let alone in December...), and entering numbers in bulk, rushing at the very end of the year, won't fly well in an audit.
Try to be well above those minimums (750/500). If an auditor disallows some activities because what you are presenting makes no sense, you want to have some margin, so you can still claim REPS.
