Purchased and lived in a condo from 2005-2009. Turned into rental, sold it this past Nov. and didn't have a renter all year. Do I change back to personal from rental?

[JulieH1 · Accepted solution]

No.

You will need to list it as a rental even though you did not have a renter.

You would have needed to live in the home for 2 of the past 5 years to get any benefit from it being a personal residence that sold.  Since you have not lived in it for eight years, there is no tax benefit to listing it as a residence.

If you continue to list it as a rental for 2017 you can deduct many items that a residence could not such as repairs and improvements.  

If you tried to rent the condo and could not, you can claim the same deductions on a vacant rental as when it's occupied.Your mortgage interest, maintenance, repairs, homeowners insurance and the cost of advertising your rental are all deductible. You can also depreciate the house -- deducting some of the value for wear and tear -- while it's unoccupied.What you can't do is claim a deduction for the loss of rental income: If nobody's signing a lease, that's your problem, not the IRS's.

[kkostarr]

Thank you!  I will have to claim part of the sale as business (used as rental) and part as personal (while I lived in it), correct?

[JulieH1]

did you live in it this year?

[kkostarr]

no, I moved in 2009 and have been renting it since then.