Tracking Our Home Value: It’s Way More Than a Number

Your offer was accepted!

I was over the moon and jumped for joy when our realtor called (truly, I get that excited about the smallest of things so I practically touched the sky this time). My excitement shifted almost instantaneously though to panic and I second guessed the decision hard! Were we really leaving our first home behind? 

We started our life together in this house, two kids, two careers, we’d had countless adventures, all the while making memories and (wahoooo!) a whole bunch of equity thanks to a booming real estate market. 

It was that equity that allowed us to plan the move to our “forever home.” Dumping all that equity into our new home made the mortgage reasonable. Even so, the new mortgage was still a lot higher than the last one. Were we biting off more than we could chew? 

Making our house a home

Once we settled in (and got used to a whole new set of new bills), we went to work on some major improvements. We planted grapevines in honor of Nonna and Papa’s garden. A fence let our new puppy Jake run around safely in the yard. Replacing the tired-out oil boiler let us take advantage of cheap natural gas prices. Besides, heating oil deliveries were a real pain to keep up with, and I knew it would increase resale value (and ding ding, that translated to more equity)! 

The improvement that brought us the most joy was opening up walls so we could host our Big Fat Italian Birthday Parties! And I’m talking huge! We packed 75 people on the property every fall and summer.

Those parties always reminded me that people were the point of it all. With each home improvement and mortgage payment, we made investments in the place where our kids turned into adults, where we celebrated holidays, where Sunday morning bacon pancakes became the memories we’d treasure. We were lucky that the equity was building, sure, but so was the life that made this house our home. 

A comfort in a trying time

But life, as it tends to do, took an unexpected turn. Post-divorce, I found myself the sole owner of that forever home. I still loved my home, but with so much shifting below my feet, I was asking myself, “Could I afford all this on my own?”

That’s when I started using YNAB. One of the first things I did in my new spending plan was to track my home’s value in YNAB along with the mortgage amount. Seeing my net worth number immediately shift up gave me breathing room. 

Suddenly, those equity dollars weren’t just tied to memories—they were my financial foundation, my biggest asset, and honestly, my security blanket during a time when everything else felt pretty uncertain. For the first time, I could see exactly what this house meant to our financial picture. 

Every month, watching that net worth number update reminded me that even as I was rebuilding life with my teens by my side, I had solid footing in the home that was now ours in a different way.

Setting up your home value account

When I decided to start tracking my home’s value in YNAB, it was pretty simple. 

Here’s how to do it ➡️

You’ll create a tracking account – this lives separate from your regular Cash or Credit accounts, so it won’t mess with your monthly plan. Click ‘Add Account,’ then ‘Unlinked,’ and here’s the important part: choose ‘Asset (e.g. Investment)’ as your account type. This ensures your home value shows up in your net worth reflection, again without affecting your spending plan.

You can name it something clear like ‘Primary Residence’ or you can roll like I do and name it something more personal and just plain fun ‘Home Sweet Our Home 💛💛💛 Value’. Enter your home’s current estimated value as the starting balance. I went with Zillow’s Zestimate—not 100% accurate, but good enough to get started.

Once you save that account, your net worth report will update. For me, seeing that updated number was eye-opening—all those mortgage payments had been quietly building real wealth, and now I could actually track it.

The quarterly ritual that keeps you grounded

I aim to update my home’s value and the balance of my mortgage account every three months or so. But I’ll be honest—I’m more of a go-with-the-flow person, so sometimes it happens when I feel like it or get inspired to check. Like when I see a house go up for sale in the neighborhood and I wonder what ours could sell for. Or when I’m daydreaming about how much equity I could tap if I needed it for something big—like helping one of my kids, replacing our roof, taking on unexpected medical expenses or finally taking that cross country road trip I’ve been dreaming about.

I usually time it with updating my investment tracking account balances too. That makes it feel like I’m getting a complete financial snapshot all at once. The process itself is pretty simple: I pull up Zillow, check the current Zestimate, then hop into YNAB to make a balance adjustment. If the value went up, it’s a positive adjustment; if it went down, it’s negative. And since it’s a tracking account there’s no category needed here. The new transaction simply updates the balance.

What I really enjoy about this process is how it connects me to the possibilities.

What I really enjoy about this process is how it connects me to the possibilities. It’s not just about tracking numbers—it’s about understanding what options I have, what dreams might be within reach, and how this house continues to be part of our families’ financial story.

There’s something grounding about how my house value contributes to my net worth and how it reminds me that if the time comes to move on, I can more freely decide where the next memories will be made.

Way more than a number

When we took the plunge to buy this house, our toddlers were barely talking in full sentences. It’s now 20 years later and they’re launching into their own lives and dreaming about buying their first homes 🤯. 

When I started writing this I intended to write only about the equity dollars that we built up through the years and the act of tracking that value in YNAB. But as I dug in, I kept thinking about how the value built over decades truly represents so much more than a dollar amount. That quietly-building asset account in YNAB gave me much-needed peace of mind, but that number tells a story of so much more. A story of joy and transformation. Of sticky-fingered toddlers and messy growing teenagers. Of Sunday bacon pancakes and 75-person birthday parties. Each dollar is another precious moment in our family’s story.

‍

‍