How to track mortgage (liability) payments as part of expense reports

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

On Sun, Jun 04, 2006 at 05:42:56PM -0700, Beth Leonard wrote:
> For example:
> Equity:Opening Balances   -> Assets:House		$100,000.00
> Equity:Opening Balances   -> Liabilities:Home loan	$80,000.00
> With those two transactions, you should see in your Equity account
> that you have a net worth of $20,000.  (Which was presumabely your
> downpayment on the house.)  If your remaining loan amount was less,
> you can add another transaction from Liabilities:Home Loan to 
> Equity:Opening Balances, to reflect the actual value outstanding
> on your loan.

I've always wondered: does anyone make any attempt to account for
appreciation and depreciation of assets? A house is probably the best
example for most of us. If the real estate market for my neighborhood
shows that prices are increasing 5% per year, should there be some way to
reflect that in net worth? Likewise, if you don't do any maintenance on
your house, it will start to depreciate.

Both the appreciation and depreciation would have to be estimates. I know
standard accounting practices have something to say about this... but
does anyone try to track it in gnucash?

Adam