Real Estate loss and taxes?

I bought a mix use building 3 years ago in San Francisco when the mkt was high - bad investment.

Rent has never covered mortage, ins and taxes.

My biz partner & I contribute $15-30K per year to offset cost of this investment. I take a loss annually on my tax return, but I end up carrying over losses each year due to limits to how much loss you can offset.

Question:
1) If I sell my property next year and end up losing money from the sale, does this mean I will be able to carry the loss from the sale and past accrued loss from prior years until its completely zero out on my taxes?
2) If I sell and get some small profit, can I take the loss and profit for tax filing purposes and can I then continue to carry forward loss until it zero's out on my tax return?

3) Taking suggestion for a good and affortable CPA. I used H&R but its time to move on.

If you sell at a loss then you can take the loss up to $3000 per year and carry over the remainder until the entire loss is taken.

Don't forget that if you sell you have to recapture the deprecation you have taken.

Its been a long time since i have done a return with passive loss limitations so i am not sure if you can take that against any profit or deprecation recapture, but i think so.

If you want an affordable tax pro consider hiring an enrolled agent. EAs are the only tax pros that can represent you in front of the IRS that have passed a very complex 2 day exam given by the IRS on taxes.

Ok, you will need to first calculate your cost basis which is effectively:
Purchase price + Purchase costs + property improvements + selling costs (real estate agent commissions, etc.) - accumulated depreciation = Cost Basis.

Once you have gotten that then you can ascertain if your loss on the sale. Next the losses that you made can be added or applied to earnings for the future year however it cannot exceed 25,000 for the year (and thats for ALL your properties).

So directly - You can carry forward the losses from rentals AND the losses from sale and apply them simultaneously.

NOTE: This does not apply if you are a real estate professional, the passive limits do not extend to real estate professionals.

You can actually have an expert answer you fully and even compute the taxes for you when you visit http://bestbuyrealestate.info/2007/11/11...