I am having trouble recording the sale of a rental house. We did not rent it in 2024. We remodeled it and sold it.

There are two ways to go.  You are selling the house, land and any other assets that were listed. Only the house/ land has a sales price. The other assets sold for zero with the house. For example, a new roof of $10,000 that was only depreciated $1,000 leaves a $9,000 loss.

• The easiest, is to use the Sch E since it has your house, assets, and depreciation. You would have to lie to the program and tell it you rented your house for a day to get into the section. It doesn't affect your taxes.
• The other option, is to list your house and all assets in sch D and enter the cost basis minus depreciation along with the sales information.  You can enter it all in the stocks, bond, and other income section. See Where do I enter the sale of a second home, an inherited home, or land on my  taxes? Enter the rental as an investment - not a second home/ personal item.

To go through the rental section:

1. Start by saying you rented it for a day
2. In the asset section, mark that you sold the item and the date sold
3. Special handling- select No
4. Main home, select No
5. Enter sales information- you have to break out the land from the house. You can use property tax valuation or another method to determine your reasonable answer.
6. Continue, no,
7. prior AMT depreciation - will be the same as the regular depreciation unless you are high income and have form 6251 in previous returns. If so, check them.
8. continue, no to installment
9. results for the house