Question

I have a question on tracking your net worth. I have my mortgage listed in my account but where can I get the"most reliable" number for calculating equity? Should I be accounting for potential gains based on the market estimates (Zillow or Realtor. com estimates of sale price) or just using the sale price from when I bought it?  

Answer 1

Personal capital uses the zillow estimate.  

Answer 2

I have two buddies that are real estate agents in my town, I usually ask them what they think my house is worse once a year staggered every 6 months. So I ask one of them every January and one of them every August. I use that and manually update personal capital after the conversation.  

Answer 3

It really depends on how accurate of an estimate you would like to have. I typically use Zillow and update annually for the home value but I update monthly on the mortgage balance side. Zillow is not the equivalent of what @iconostasis23 is doing but I also don’t have a friend in real estate to give me an estimate either. Mint and personal capital will do this within an app but I personally track net worth using an excel spreadsheet. Annually I copy it to a new tab so I can see it over time.  

Answer 4

Wealthfront app pulls from Redfin. The value of the property is taken into account for your total net worth displayed at the top right of the app.  

Answer 5

For the past few years I've been manually taking an average of 3 sites, usually Zillow, realtor, and trulia.  

Answer 6

You should use your county appraisal and look at the comps used if you want to be most accurate.