There is no tax benefit to leaving a unit vacant, despite people who don’t understand real estate constantly making this claim. You do not get to deduct the ren

There is no tax benefit to leaving a unit vacant, despite people who don’t understand real estate constantly making this claim. You do not get to deduct the rents you failed to collect, and there is no tax benefit that is lost when you rent the property. It never makes sense to refuse a dollar because you’ll have to pay 30% tax on it, or whatever. There may be other factors leading your friend to keep his property vacant, but this isn’t one of them. The last paragraph sounds like nonsense too, though I’m less sure about that. What mechanism do you think there is for the mortgage holder to see your leases? And how stupid do you think banks are, that they’d rather your property bring in zero than less than they were expecting?