If I designate my new home (bought in 2018) as principal residence for 2019, will I have to pay capital gains on my previous home, listed for sale in 2018, but not sold?

[slammin-pc]

I know that for 2018, no sale took place, so nothing is reported this year.  However, if I designate my new home as principal residence for 2019, I'm afraid that my old home will be subject to capital gains because it sold the year after we bought our new home and was not designated principal residence.

[TurboTaxSusan]

Normally, if you have two properties, where one was your principal residence until you moved to the 2nd one, if you sell the 1st property, you will have a capital gains amount based on the time that it wasn’t your principal residence. However, in the calculations there is a “bonus” year added to the number of years that the home was your principal residence. So in your case, if you declare your new home as your principal residence and sell your old home within a year, then you won’t have any capital gains. If the old home doesn’t sell within a year, you might have some taxable capital gains.

Also remember that someday you may sell your 2nd home as well, so if you wait too long to declare it as your principal residence, you may have gains when you sell the 2nd home.