Tracking Primary Residences

Leo Bolta lbolta at rogers.com
Sun Jun 18 17:43:36 EDT 2017


Although I understand it does not seem to be standard accounting practice to
track appreciation on a condo which is a principal residence, I can't help
but want to implement incorporating very conservative periodic values into
GnuCash, possibly as much as twice a year as the condo represents a
considerable percentage of my net worth/portfolio. 
 
My attempt at treating the condo as a fixed asset with an unrealized capital
gain aspect was to incorporate the set-up as per 'Example 11.3 of Chapter
11" in the GnuCash manual. However because of a quite a hot
real-estate/condo market, my unrealized gains are now so significant that
the unrealized gain dwarfs the fixed income amounts to the point that the
bar charts such as "Income/Expense Chart" displays a skyscraper sized income
bar in the graph, next to a very miniscule bungalow sized bar representing
my expenses. Prior to implementing the new set-up, the Income vs. Expense
chart was much more meaningful as a gage to monitor tangible income against
real expenses. I've even tried taking the total bi-annual gain and evenly
distributing the total into the past six months but the reports still don't
have the meaningful representation it once had for me. 
 
Because the condo is my principal residence which I don't have any intention
of selling anytime soon, is there a way to account for periodic appreciated
values, without it effecting income in such a profound way when the gains
are in reality mere paper gains? I am also not so concerned about the
eventual capital gain, since the sale of a primary residence are not treated
as a taxable gain here in Canada. 


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