Net Worth - June Update

How the time flies, it seems that I just did my last update. Anyway here we go.

Assets
House $294,400
RRSP $12,800
Old Work Pension $11,700
New Work Pension $1300
Wife's RRSP $5500
Wife's Investment Account $5000
ING Savings Account $6800

Debt
Mortgage $147,500
Line of Credit $0

Therefore my net worth now stands at: $190,000. Overall an increase of +$58,500 or 44.5% from my last check up.

Before anyone gets too excited I do need to remind you my house value has shot up a lot in the last four months which is driving these insane increases. I decided to use my home value as market value -8% to account for closing costs and fees if I cashed it out. That way I've got a set formula I use to determine my house value rather than just taking a conservative guess.

For those of you who may be doubting my local crazy house market I would like to point out that I know someone whom just sold their home for an over $100,000 profit after owing the house for just seven months and trust me when I say they just painted it, added some hardwood and put in a new furnace. That's it, that all they did. Talk about lucky timing that they previously bought an investment condo at the same time as the house and can move into that.

The result of all this is I'm 2.3 times my net worth from Dec 2006, which is almost completely driven my house value. If you strip out the house, I'm only up $3200 or 8% from April's net worth to now.

Overall the number looks good. I have to admit I'm curious to see how far this housing market will shoot up before crashing down. Could I end up living in a $500,000 house by the end of three years? If so it will be interesting, but in the mean time I'll just enjoy the ride.

Net Worth - April 2007

Well it is time again for a net worth update. For those newer readers I do this every two months just to keep a pulse on how things are going.

Assets
House $240,000
RRSP $12,600
Old Work Pension $10,500
New Work Pension $800
Wife's RRSP $5200
Wife's Investment Account $5000
ING Savings Account $5800

Debt
Mortgage $148,400
Line of Credit $0

Therefore my net worth now stands at: $131,500. Overall an increase of +$46,050 or 54.5% from my last check up. Now I know this value looks huge, but keep in mind I did just get my over $7000 tax return and my house value has shot up a lot.

I should point out I determine my house value by looking at similar homes in the market place and account for improvements I make to the house. I've been keeping my estimates conservative to ensure they stay realistic. At the same time I've been realizing the market is picking up some serious steam lately. For example I recently saw a house very similar to mine with some extra improvements and an extra 100 square feet of space listed for $289,000. I just can't realistically undervalue my home by more than $50,000 so the value had to come up a bit larger of a jump than normal to cover the gap. I'm acutely aware that by using a conservative market price for my house that if there is a market crash my net worth will drop like a stone. Yet after being through a market like this once before with my last house I know you can't ignore it either.

Also please note that I'll submitting a post to the second Canadian Tour of PF Blogs which is going to be hosted by the Money Diva on May 7th. If you have any requests for a topic I'm open to ideas (since I currently don't have a clue what I'm going to write about).

Net Worth Update

For those whom have been reading me for a while you might wonder why it takes me a while to post an update on my net worth. After all my last one was in Dec, 2006. To be honest I find tracking it on a monthly basis just a bit too mind numbing for my taste, but in the interest of knowing how I'm doing I have decided to update it every two months. So here we go.

Assets
House $200,000 (I raised this up a bit to cover some recent house improvements and also to reflect my most recent market survey of house prices in my area.)
RRSP $12,200
Old Work Pension $10,500
New Work Pension $500
Wife's RRSP $5000
Wife's Investment Account $4400
ING Savings Account $2000

Debt
Mortgage $149,150
Line of Credit $0

Therefore my net worth now stands at: $85,450.

Overall a nice little increase (+$5,250 or 6.5%) from my last check up. As you might have noticed my new work pension has kicked in so that should help out the savings nicely. I will note here that these numbers were from Feb 26 when I started pulling them together and don't count in yesterday's slide on the markets (but my guess would be that slide dragged me down around $500 total).

Year End Check Up: Net Worth Update

With the end of the year approaching I think it is time to take a snap shot of my net worth and find out how I'm doing. In general practice, even if you do nothing else for the entire year of tracking your net worth it is useful to get an end/start of year snap shot of your financial health so you can track your progress at least yearly.

Assests
House $198,000 (I recently did a survey of house listings in the area, apparently my last estimate of $195, 000 is a bit low since a house with 500 sq ft less that mine is selling for $198,000.)
RRSP $11,600
Wife's RRSP $4800
Old Work Pension $10,500 (I'm almost embrassed to say I forgot about this in my first net worth calculation)
Wife's Investment Account $4200
ING Savings Account $1000

Debt
Mortgage $149,900
Line of Credit $0 (As I mentioned before, I keep this as part of my emergancy fund.)

Therefore my net worth now stands at: $80,200.

Even with my 'lost' pension money that is still a nice little increase from my first net worth check back in Nov. See you in the New Year.

Up To The Start Line

Well in any race you need to define where you are and where you are going. In this case I need to understand where I am right now. So I’ll use my net worth to provide a benchmark (which is basically: what you have minus what you owe).

What I have (Assets)

House (Market Value) $195,000
My RRSP $11,000
Wife RRSP $4,000
Wife Investment Account $4,000
ING Savings Account $2,000
Asset Total: $216,000


What I owe (Liabilities)

Mortgage $150,000
Line of Credit $0
Student Loans $0 (Just paid off!)
Liabilities Total: $150,000

Net Worth = $216,000 – $150,000 = $66,000

All in all I’m fairly happy with that number. After all I’m under 30 and I have a positive net worth. By the way, I had $60,000 in student loans between my wife and me about six years ago.