I bought 5 rental properties in three different cities in July 2011, with cash, at a total of $203,000 (low income rentals).
I applied depreciation to each property each year doing my taxes in TurboTax.
I sold each of the properties at various times throughout 2016 at a total loss of $96,281 (real estate sucks).
They were never used by me for anything but rentals ,but they went unrented for various periods of time.