How to enter an existing loan

[FireFly]

Joe,

I'm also, not an accountant, so take this as my version.

I have 4 accounts that come into play with regards to my home.

 Asset:
    Purchased Assets (The house)
    Checking Account
 
 Liability:
    Home Mortgage
 
 Expense:
    Mortgage Interest

I guess I'm not sure where you would ever have anything in your home equity account that you listed, mine I have the house in Purchased Assets, and I actually created it as a share and then update the price through Zillow.com (not accurate, but gives me an idea of the house value), the problem with this is I can't add things like "replacing the roof" into the account, not sure how others handle, however I can add the Expense: Mortgage Interest to the Expenses: Household maintenance, to come up with an idea.

Then for actual mortgage payments, I simply make a withdrawal transaction on the Checking account, with splits into Home Mortgage (to lower the actual balance) and Mortgage Interest.

Does that help, hinder?

I'd love to know others opinions or how they've handled it (in simple enough terms that people who aren't accountants can understand).

- James Duerr

E-mail: FireFlys_98 at yahoo.com
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