My second home was vacant and I decided to convert it into rental. I renovated the house with new interior, paint etc. However I couldn't rent, can I deduct the expense?

[Priyank]

The house is a vacation home and is outside US. It was empty for long time so in 2018, I decided to renovate it and list it as rental. I couldn't rent it for 2018 but it was listed. Now when I enter information in Turbo tax premier, it has I can deduct ZERO dollars.. ( it spells it), what am I doing wrong? 

The software walks me through rental and royalty section and asks all kinds of questions but at the end it says zero dollar deduction. What am I doing wrong?

[Anita01]

You cannot deduct expenses such as painting because the property was not available for rent at that time.  If you did anything that counts as a real improvement, like adding new appliances or adding a bedroom or modernizing the bathroom, etc., you could add those amounts to the cost basis of the property and they would increase depreciation on the property.  You would enter the date the property became available for rent as the placed in service date.