IRS have several rules. The house must be your primary home. You can only have 1 primary home. The mortgage interest and real estate tax of the primary home is deductible base on the % of what you own. You are also allowed to have a secondary home... ie vacation home which would also be deductible. If it is a investment property it is not deducible. You can offset the income with the mortgage. If the property takes a lost you can not offset it with your income. However like anything there are exceptions. If you are a real estate investor meaning 51% of your time is spend on your real estate business than you can pass along the lost against your income. There are rules on who can be considered a full time real estate investor. You can either call up IRS to ask or look for a good account to answer the question.

You need to confer with CPA who can review all with you deductions you can receive

National Featured Realtor and Consultant, Texas Mortgage Loan Officer, Credit Repair Lecturer
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Lynn911
Lynn911

I am not an accountant nor an attorney, but from my own personal experiences, I can tell you that I deduct both taxes and interest on properties that are not principal residences. Your real challenge will be obtaining the mortgage on the property where you are joint owner........unless the other owners actually hold the mortgage for you OR sign the mortgage with you......if you've got that solved, I believe you're good....but yes, check w/your acct/attrny.
J

Dear Maggie:

Someone by the name of Ivana asked the same question yesterday, are you related to her? Here is the answer I gave her....

If you own two properties, even if one of them you are a partial owner, you can only claim one as your primary residence. With the one you claim as your primary residence you can deduct the real estate taxes and mortgage interest on your personal income tax return.

The other property would be considered an investment property, with that there are certain tax advantages that you can take advantage of but not as much or the same as the advantages you receive with the primary residence.

You must speak to an accountant to help you with this, end of story! If you need additional help finding a co-op in Brooklyn, let me know! Good luck!

Sincerely,
Mitchell S. Feldman
Associate Broker/Director of Sales
Madison Estates & Properties, Inc.
Office: (718) 645-1665
Email: MitchellSFeldman@aol.com

Maggie,

Your best course of action may be to seek the advice of your CPA. Since there may be much more to this scenario your best advice would come from an accountant.

Good luck

Maggie,
Before you do anything, speak to your accountant or get one if you don't already have one. As real estate professionals, we cannot give legal or tax advice. Good luck.

Ralph Windschuh
Century 21 Princeton Properties
631-467-0009
rwindschuh@c21princetonproperties.com