Chasing the Bull

This question has been addressed many times on such blogs as LazyMan, MillionareMommy, The Motley Fool, SmartMoney, Yahoo!, MoneyMonk, and Free Money Finance. There are literally thousands more that are easy enough to find via Google if you want to read more on the subject.

While I can see the value in both sides of the argument, I actually find the enjoyment of owning my own home a lot more valuable than the interest I will pay over the next 27 years. In that respect, I consider my house an asset, but not one that I am counting on to supplement my retirement. I will be including it within my monthly “net worth” calculations, because if I had to sell it, it would have cash value.

As a result, I will be counting my house as an asset, and the mortgage as a liability on my balance sheet. As an accountant, I consider this approach to be the most conservative. In my opinion, doing so represents my financial condition at the end of any one month more accurately.

I will be following the example set by Hank and will be determine the value of my house by performing the following steps:

1. Log into Zillow, Yahoo!, RealEstateABC, Eppraisal, and CyberHomes.
2. Throw out the highest and lowest value
3. Take an average of the remaining three estimates.
4. Include this value as the value of my house (asset piece)

Please let me know what you think about this approach.

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