Home Renovations Tracking: Something better than google Docs!

April 13, 2015 10:20 AM

So pourtant and I are in the process of buying a house (yay and also omg freakout). For practical reasons, our finances are separate. We are planning to make some minor renovations to the house and would like a simple way to track who has paid for what and equity earned and such. Is there such a dedicated tool for this?

I'd rather not stick with Google Docs if there is something more tailored.

Surely there has to be some startup that lets you enter the purchase value of the house, track equity-building efforts and expenses and then help you come out the other side? Or have I stumbled upon an industry ripe for disruption?

posted by softlord to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

The sane way to do this is to set up a bank account to which you contribute a preset amount of working capital, and pay for all expenses from this account. If there is money left at the end, you simply distribute it to the original contributors according to percentage ownership, and if you need more money then you replenish according to percentage ownership again.
posted by rada at 10:30 AM on April 13, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Splitwise is a tool I used with my now-wife before we merged finances. This isn't a specific tool for the exact purposes you're seeking, but you can use it to do what you need. It's very easy to use and great to keep track of who paid for what. It is geared more towards ensuring equity in spending (i.e. hey you owe softlord $4,000) but from there it's just an easy calculation towards equity. Obviously at $0 owed to either party you would essentially be at equal equity in the house.
posted by Karaage at 10:37 AM on April 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Splitwise is pretty great for the process part. Can't help or advise on the equity side.
posted by kcm at 11:05 AM on April 13, 2015

Here is the thing - what purchases count as "equity building" and how do you really intend to track equity? Like, if one of you spends $10,000 on a bathroom renovation that improves the value of the property by $8,000, and the other spends $10,000 on landscaping the improves the value of the property by $4,000, do you want the equity to be split according to the actual amount you spent, or the actual increase in equity? What about buying smaller discrete things like mulch, paint, a termite contract, caulk, having a plumber fix a clogged drain, etc. - are you going to track that? Those things certainly add up, but they don't directly build equity, although they certainly add to your home's value eventually if you keep it house well-maintained and improve the look of it over time relative to other homes in your market. To the degree such things build equity, it is basically impossible to value it until you sell your home and can see the actual increase in price (and then, you'd still have to account for market fluctuations as opposed to the increase due to your own labor). I can't imagine that an app or spreadsheet could possibly take this sort of information and give you a helpful number.

I'm not saying it is impossible to track home expenses and be fair, but I think that trying to examine it in terms of equity is going to be way too difficult as opposed to simply looking at your expenses. My husband and I buy an absolute ton of random shit for our house each year (services! tools! products! renovations! etc.) and keep somewhat separate finances. We just have a "House Fund" joint bank account for major purchases and a joint credit card for smaller, more routine purchases (i.e., our inevitable monthly trips to Ace/Home Depot/Lowes). We each contribute money each month to the House Fund, which we use whenever we have a large expense or need to write a check to a repair person. If we were to divorce it would be trivial to look at the deposits to the House Fund and figure out how much each of us has contributed over time, and we know that we always pay the joint credit card bill in roughly the same ratio as our salaries.
posted by gatorae at 12:27 PM on April 13, 2015

The classic advice for two people who are not financially entangled (through marriage or otherwise) to buy a house together is... don't.

If you have to fix the sewer pipe, does that count as equity, even though it doesn't increase the value? It's certainly a required maintenance.

If you pay the painter to repaint the living room because one of you hates the color, does that count as equity?

If one of you buys paint and the other paints it, does sweat equity count? How much? Does it then become unfair that one of you can essentially have a "side gig" improving the house and getting equity?

Are you going to take into account the time-value of money? That is, if money was spent five years ago, then it should turn into more equity than time spent yesterday? What formula will you use for that?

If you spend money to redo the kitchen but in a style that is not popular--but you like--that might in fact reduce the value of the house. Does that still count as equity?

Do tools count towards equity? Because as a homeowner who does a lot of DIY projects, we easily have several thousand in tools, and we plan to spend more on tools.

I think this is why there isn't just an app for it. I would recommend that if you want to split this way, you make a spreadsheet with name, date, and amount (either what you paid or what you value its increase to equity to be) and then some magic formula transformation so that at the end of the day, you know how much the house's worth is yours.

Or do what my husband and I did for a while: Keep the house under one person's name. That person pays all maintenance/repairs/supplies. The other person pays market rent. My husband did help me with labor, when he could, but that was more as a favor (like you would for someone you love) rather than because he was obligated or he had a share of the property.
posted by ethidda at 12:41 PM on April 13, 2015

Response by poster: To be clear: we're pretty good about keeping things er...equitable, and dont nickle and dime each other. I appreciate the messages of caution, this is more about "together we put $x into things that we considered worth putting into a document." and "softlord paid for x last month so pourtant can pay for y this month since they're similar in cost".
posted by softlord at 2:21 PM on April 13, 2015