With rare exception (and I mean *REALLY* rare) residential rental real estate will always operate at a loss *ON PAPER* come tax time, every year. When you take the depreciation you are required to take by law, along with the deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes and insurance, that will almost always exceed the rental income income received for the year. Add to that your other rental expenses you're allowed (cleaning, maintenance, repairs, etc.) and you're practically guaranteed to operate at a loss every single year.
When your rental expenses/deductions get your taxable rental income to zero, that's it. You're done. Any excess deductions are carried over to the next year. So with each passing year you will have ever increases losses that get carried over to the next year. You can't "realize" those losses against non-rental income until the tax year you sell the property.
Therefore, its completely normal for your bottom line figure on line 26 of SCH E to be zero, or a negative number.
