Does my spouse qualify as a real estate professional in this situation?

[nhu6086]

My spouse will only be working full time at a different job 6 months out of the year. The other 6 months he will be staying home and not working any other job, therefore he should be able to spend more than 50% of his time during the year on managing our two rental properties (I am the landlord for both rental properties and we are filing jointly) as well as meet the 750 hours + threshold. We do not have any kids or side business, will he qualify as a real estate professional? What kind of proof needs to be shown other than communications and coordination of managing rental properties during that time?

[Carl]

Ya know, I myself have three rental properties that I've owned for 25 plus years now. I can tell you right now that there is no way on earth that you are going to convince anyone, especially the IRS, that you spend more than 50% of your working time on two rentals. Just not gonna happen. With a requirement of 750 hours a year, that's 15 hours a week. Heck, with my three rentals it's an effort on my part to spend more than 15 hours a year on all three rentals combined. Even if one of them goes empty and I do the work to turn it around and get it rented out again. So I suggest you not even go there, as with you only have two rentals, it would be literally begging for an audit which you can't win.

[nhu6086]

Thank you. That was really helpful