Recording the Purchase of a condo in Quicken 2004

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All you have to do is charge those expenses to whatever ASSET account you used for the home purchase itself. One caution, though...you must examine the closing costs carefully to determine their exact nature, and the proper treatment. I'll give you an example. Let's suppose at the closing you issued a check for $10,000. Let's say that $8,000 was for title insurance, and $2,000 was a real estate tax proration. You would charge the $8k to the ASSET account you used for the home purchase, and you would charge $2k to 'real estate tax expense', a P&L account (or in Quicken lingo, a CATEGORY). If you prefer, post a list of your closing costs and I'll tell you how to handle each one. And, please respond in the newsgroup, so others can learn something from this discussion.

Hi, Art.

Yep. We've discussed this here many times. I'm not much good at searching the archives, but follow John Pollard's lead and you should find at least a couple of threads per year. The short answer is to read that HUD statement and record what it says, line by line.

Here's the full text of a message I posted here on 11/06/2002:

Hi, Steve.

You should have received a closing statement from somebody when your purchase closed. That statement should be in the form of what we accountants call a "T-account". That is, there are two columns of numbers, and they both add up to the same total. One column (probably the left) shows all the amounts that are charged to you, starting with the actual purchase price of the property, plus loan fees and other closing costs, plus any refund checks issued to you if you deposited - or borrowed - more than enough to cover everything. In the other column are all the amounts credited to you, of which the loan amount is probably the largest, plus the earnest money, down payment and any other cash you put in to close the deal.

All this information can be intimidating, but just like a road map, you just take it one step at a time, don't skip any, and you'll get to where you need to be. ;

(Note that my email address has changed since then. And I've been retired for three more years, so my expertise is even more out of date.)

I've never used Quicken's House or Mortgage Account types (they are a fairly recent addition to the program and I haven't bought a home in 15 years), but the basic techniques are the same. Also, this particular quoted message involved rental property, but the principles are the same whether you are buying a first home, a second home or an investment property.

If you have further questions, Art, just ask.

RC