Buying home

[Bodomit .]

Hi there,

I am a KMyMoney user since about 13 years and I really love this software:
first of all, thank you very much to all devs for creating and sharing it!

When I started using it, I was a boy and the most complicate transactions I
had to manage were part-time jobs and study expenses :)

Now I'm old enough to buy my first house: I am finding out it is a very
long and complicate process and I am also having some troubles with the
transaction management.

Quick question: what is the most correct way to handle it?

Let me try to better explain what I've tried to do.

The expenses I am having are divided into three categories:
a. Expenses for buying the house itself
b. Expenses for maintenance (eg. cutting grass in the garden, fixing roof,
…): those to keep the house in good shape
c. Expenses for improvements (es. restructuring, building a new room, …):
those to improve the house

I've started by creating an expenses category "house" and putting all the
expenses together. It didn't work, because spending money on an house is
not like spending it on an holiday: once the money is gone, one still has
the house, that is worth "something"; by accounting everything as
"expense", I've ended up with big unrealistic spikes in every report.

Then I've tried by creating an "asset" account and moving all the money
spent on the house there: I also had problems, because the house value
changes over time (slowly decreases until maintenance is done, increases
with improvements, and fluctuates with the market) and I couldn't find a
way to represent this situation.

Last, I've tried creating a new investment, and handling the house just
like it was a stock: it didn't work too, because a stock does not need
maintenance and then there is no place to write down maintenance expenses.

So, let's say the house is worth 100 when bought, It loses 1 value every
year unless maintained, so every year I have to spend 1 to keep the house
value to 100. In addition, I can choose to spend extra money to increase
the house value. And beyond all, the value fluctuates anyway just like any
good, but the daily updated market price is unknown.

In the end, I am now very confused and writing this long post in seek for
advice from fellow users: thank you for reading it.
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