@zhongjp058 If you are doing a short-term rent-back of a home you just purchased, and you want to treat it as a residential rental, you need to follow all the rules of a rental. For all the reasons above, that is complicated, time-consuming, and won't save you anything on taxes in all likelihood.
As long as this is short term, our suggestion is to ignore the rental aspect; don't report the income as rental, don't use schedule E, and ignore publication 527. Instead, you would treat the rental situation as part of the cost of buying the home, along with your inspections and other closing costs. The money you get from the rental would be treated as a reduction in the price of the home, just as if you got a rebate of the real estate commission from the agent, or the buyer paid your closing costs. Where the "sales price" is $100,000 for example, and the buyer gives you $1000 for any reason (rent back, paying your closing costs, etc.) then your selling price for capital gains purposes is $99,000. This is in publication 523 selling your home. It may also be in the publication on "basis of assets".
