Your property is officially a rental property at the time it is placed in service.
Placed in Service
You place
property in service in a rental activity when it is ready and available for a
specific use in that activity. Even if you aren’t using the property, it is in
service when it is ready and available for its specific use.
Example
2.
On April 6, you purchased a house to use as
residential rental property. You made extensive repairs to the house and had it
ready for rent on July 5. You began to advertise the house for rent in July and
actually rented it beginning September 1. The house is considered placed in
service in July when it was ready and available for rent. You can begin to
depreciate the house in July.
From
<https://www.irs.gov/publications/p527#en_US_2017_publink1000219036>
No, the days used
full-time for repairs and maintenance (even if a family member also used it at
the same time for personal purposes) are NOT personal use days.
Here's some more
info on personal use for rentals:
A day of personal
use is any day, or part of a day, that your property was used by:
1) you for personal
purposes
2) any other person
for personal purposes, if that person owns part of the unit (unless rented to
that person under a "shared equity" financing agreement)
3) anyone in your
family or in the family of someone who owns part of the unit
4) anyone under an
agreement that lets you use some other unit
5) anyone who pays
less than a fair rental price for the unit
The following are
NOT treated as personal use days:
* days a member of
your family used the property as their main home and paid a fair rental price
* days used
full-time for repairs and maintenance (even if a family member also used it at
the same time for personal purposes)
* days you used the
dwelling as your main home before (or after) renting it, if:
1) the unit
was rented 12 months or more or will be.
2) the
dwelling unit was not rented 12 months or more but was sold.
