It depends. But you will not be able to choose not to use a portion of the loss from the sale of your rental property this year and use is loss next year if you have income to offset this loss in the current tax year.
When it comes to recognizing the loss on the sale of your rental property, this loss will be a Section 1231 loss—which can be a good kind of loss to have. Here’s why.
First, Section 1231 losses can be used to reduce any type of income you may have - salary, bonus, self-employment income, capital gains, you name it.
Second, you may have a net operating loss (NOL) if the Section 1231 loss is large enough to reduce your other income below zero. If so, you can carry back the NOL for at least two years and use it to offset taxable income in those years. In doing so, you can recover some or all of the taxes you paid in those previous years by amending those returns.
If any of the NOL is left over after going back two years, you can carry the rest forward into future tax years to offset future income (for up to 20 years). Alternatively, you can choose to not to carry it back and just carry it forward for 20 years
Click this link for more information : https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Rental-Property/Selling-Rental-Real-Estate-at-a-Loss/...
[edited 2/12/2017]
