Renting rooms in house I dont live in

[CHANEY905]

I moved out of my house in Nov 2017 moved to a new city.

The house has 4 bedrooms, 2 with private baths 

In jan 2018 I started advertising rooms for rent.

I obtained 2 tenants for the 2 bedrooms with private baths.

I decided not to rent the other 2 rooms. I pay all utilites and expenses.  Because I ocassionally

need to travel back and forth to address issues, plumbing, repairs, inspections,

regular maintenance, etc,   I also travel back and forth to go to doc appointments and

other personal visits.  

Please advise, is this a rental property ?  What deductions can I take ?  Do I have to track personal days ?  Turbo Tax calculates the % of Personal Days and makes an adjustment to the expense deduction calculation.  Should Cable and Security System expenses be included in this calculation.  Where do I enter these amounts in Turbo Tax, Utilities   If I enter in Other Expenses they are excluded from the Personal Days calculation.   

[AmyC]

This is definitely rental property. You are still using the property sometimes. Any days you are there solely to work on the house, repairs, upkeep, do NOT count as personal days of use.

You will want to prorate expenses between you and the renters. The program can do that for you or you can manually enter your information.

Please see the links below for more information.

• What kinds of rental property expenses can I deduct?
• What is rental depreciation and how does it differ from an expense?
• How do I handle capital improvements and depreciation for my rental?
• Can I claim a security deposit?
• Where do I enter Income and Expenses?