I had this issue arise last year with a new client who owned two rental properties but was separately filing a Schedule C she had obtained an EIN for to write off her travel, meals & other expenses related to her research & meetings to find new rental properties to purchase. She deemed it a separate biz, but after I pointed out she could not have a biz that had no income and only loss for more than 3 years (and even so, that alone made her an audit risk), she applied for a new EIN to start a new biz to continue same for another 3 years. Not received her tax data for this year yet, but that was my recommendation - to spread the expenses across her existing properties, as they did show a profit. Writing off expenses for the search for a new property to purchase should apply to that property - if purchased - but writing off failed searches for new properties to acquire applied to existing ones seemed a dodgy endeavor to me.

Would love to hear more thoughts on this BEFORE she send me her tax data this year. She's an incrediblly complicated return for many other reasons, but this was the only issue that didn't sit well with me.