MARK KOHLERMain Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, Main Street Professionals, LLC · Owner at Main Street Professionals, LLC

How to Make Money Renting Your House When You Travel

30 Sept 2025 · 2 min

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1:30

In this video Mark Kohler advises homeowners who travel frequently on turning their primary residence—or portions of it such as a basement, accessory dwelling unit (ADU) or converted garage—into a short‑term rental to generate cash flow while they are away. He explains that to qualify for the “short‑term rental depreciation loophole,” the space must be used 100 % as a short‑term rental and cannot serve as the owner’s primary residence; the 14‑day rule applies if the owner lives there more than 14 days a year, which disqualifies the depreciation benefit. Kohler emphasizes that the primary goal is cash flow, not necessarily the tax write‑off, and suggests alternatives like Furnish Finder or mid‑term rentals. He outlines reporting requirements: rental income must be reported, depreciation may be taken, and expenses are allocated proportionally based on square footage, number of lock‑offs, and other usage metrics. The overall message is a pragmatic, step‑by‑step approach to monetize vacant space while traveling, with clear guidance on tax compliance and expense allocation.

Chapters

So this is a couple, they are interested in renting out their primary residence, but as a short term rental. He goes on to talk about how they're going to take their primary residence and maybe downsize it. But we want to convert it to a rental when we're not there because we're going to travel around the country and outside of the U.S. but when we come home, we want to be able to stay there. How does this work? How do we report this? So the first point I want to make, and this is for everybody out there that has a primary residence. You could short term rental your basement, an accessory dwelling unit. You convert the garage into a one bedroom and bath. It's a great income opportunity because why just leave that home sitting there vacant while you're out of town? Make some income on it. But under the short term rental strategy, for tax strategy planning or the short term rental loophole as it's known, it has to be 100% short term rental. You cannot use it as your primary residence. Now we got the 14 day rule and yada yada, if you're going to use it as a primary residence, he says maybe 50 days out of the year or more, then it's not going to qualify for that short term rental depreciation loophole write off. That's okay, we don't have to have that loophole what we're interested in. Everybody, let's keep our eye on the ball. They've got a property that's going to be sitting vacant, making them nothing. Let's create some cash flow and put it in a short term rental position. They may even consider furnish finder a midterm rental scenario. So don't worry about the tax write off, just make some cash flow with it. Their last question is, well, how do we report this? You are required to report the income. We might do some depreciation. We're going to write off expenses proportionally based on square footage used and how many lock offs and all that on a schedule. Either.