Capital gains question regarding housing

[Mwsinron]

Situation is we own a vacation house. Our primary residence is a rented place for various reasons. Would we take a captial gains hit if we sold the vacation house to purchase a home to live in?

 

[Martha]

Situation is we own a vacation house. Our primary residence is a rented place for various reasons. Would we take a captial gains hit if we sold the vacation house to purchase a home to live in?

The only way to exclude gains up to the joint exemption of $500,000 is if the house is your "principal residence." Here are the regs that sort of define principal residence: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-regs/td9030.pdf

 

[Mwsinron]

Thanks I was hoping for some loophole I missed.