Selling a house in Microsoft Money

In Article 460, the basic mechanism for tracking a house purchase in Microsoft Money is described. An additional task would be to sell a house, which reverses some of the methods in that article.

This article shows how to do it. It does not include a mechanism to buy another from the proceeds - this is in Article 462.

The aim is again to achieve a net-worth neutral set of transactions - you do not gain any money here, you merely release the equity in the house in the form of cash.

Closing the loan down, and selling the asset is a relatively simple procedure. First, you need to zero-out the loan, and secondly transfer out the equity you have in the house.

This is simply two transactions.

1. Create a principal transfer transaction from the Asset account (the house) to the loan. This is the same type of transaction as in Article 136.
   
   
2. You will then have a residual value left in the asset account. Transfer the full amount of this asset into whichever bank account you receive the proceeds of the sale in.

Example

For example, on a house sale of $200k and an outstanding loan of $150k.

There will be the following transactions:

1. Transfer from the asset to the loan, the full amount of the loan balance (150k)
2. Transfer of the remaining equity in the asset to your savings account (50k)
3. Closure of the loan account
4. Closure of the Asset account

Account	Before	After
Asset (House)	200k	0
Loan (Mortgage)	-150k	0
Savings	0	50k
Total	50k	50k