Capital Gains

* one house I live in the other is a rental

Assuming that you have 2 houses & you have a tenant in one of them, which makes it a rental property.

When you sell a rental property, you can take advantage of the section 1031 exchange. Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code allows real estate investors to sell a rental property, buy another property at an equal or greater value, and defer paying tax on the capital gains. You are not avoiding capital gain tax but just deferring it.

More information can be found at, https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/investments-and-taxes/what-is-irs-form-8824-like-kind-exchange/L6UsQp15n 

Also if you convert the rental to personal residence, you can take the SEC 121 primary residence exclusion. To qualify, investors must have lived in their property as their primary residence for two of the five years immediately preceding the sale. However, the years as a personal residence do not have to be consecutive.

@TC1167 Thanks for attending the event!