How to enter initial downpay for purchase of a building?

That one took me a bit to figure out when we first bought our house as well. What's confusing you is the downpayment is not a cost. There is no transaction associated with it as a cost. So it shows up as a transfer. I handle this using a one time account I created to capture the details of escrow. The downpayment goes into escrow, and the full purchase price of the home is essentially a transfer (a payment) from the loan account. If you don't want an escrow account in Quicken then I'd just show it as a transfer to the loan account. One big payment.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Scott

Hi, Ralph.

Scott has the right answer. We discuss this a couple of times a year, but not recently. I'll try to summarize it (but you all know how wordy I am), and you can search the archives for more thorough discussions.

To record a purchase or sale of real estate (whether an investment, a business property or a residence), use the closing statement as your guide and enter everything on it. The statement may be the HUD-1 form or some other document from the lender or attorney. The buyer and seller should each receive such a statement; they will be almost mirror images of each other, with the "sale price" on one and the "purchase price" on the other. Record the entire transaction as of the closing date, the day that you actually become the owner of the property. Until the closing, everything is tentative and subject to change.

For the buyer, one side of the statement should show the purchase price, plus costs of acquiring the property, perhaps some operating expenses paid from the escrow, and any cash refund if too much was paid into escrow. On the other side will be the loan assumed, plus cash paid in by the buyer, both as the down payment and any additional amounts for closing costs.

When you write the check for the down payment, create a "limbo" account, if you don't already have one. Accountants would call this account something like "Suspense" or "Deposits"; you can call it anything that makes sense to you. It probably should be an Asset Account, but a Liability Account would work just as well. Whatever you call it, the balance should be zero after the closing entry. In addition to the original down payment, put any further payments into this account, too.

When you record the closing statement, make it a Split entry. The purchase price and other costs of acquisition should go into the Real Property Account (by whatever name); any property taxes, insurance premiums or other expenses paid through escrow should go to the proper Expense Categories. The loan amount goes to establish that Liability Account. And the down payment is credited back to that limbo account, leaving it with a zero balance.

When the dust settles, you should have the total cost of your new property in the asset account, the loan balance in the liability account, expenses in their categories - and zero in your down payment account.

I've not actually done this in Quicken, Ralph. I bought this home in 1989, before I started using Quicken. And I retired soon after that, so I haven't had to handle transactions for clients, either, so I've never used the loan wizard.

RC

Thankfully that was just a summary! :P

Cheers, Scott

I've done this three times in Quicken already. When we bought our first house, sold our first house, and bought our second house. I created a new escrow account for each time we bought/sold, and then hid them when it was all done. The downpayment never really shows up. The closest you come to the downpayment is the two to three deposits we made into the escrow account. What's cool is that after you enter the details from the closing statement out of escrow the equity in the asset account for the home is exactly the downpayment. The benefit I like with doing it this way is that it makes it a heck of a lot easier to track the various categories of the costs that came out of escrow. Such as partial tax payments, closing costs, etc. This really helps when preparing taxes at the end of the year.

Cheers, Scott

Scott & RC: Thank you both very much for your very helpful assistance!!

Were you able to figure it out?