Future Net Worth - Lifetime Planner

gogators68

Lifetime Planner provides the cash flow and investment portfolio balances when you click on a future year on the main graph. However, I've been unable to find the net worth for a future year - which may include homes, real estate and other assets (net of any loans). Q Help indicates that Lifetime Planner calculates future net worth but I've been unable to get to it. Does anyone know how to obtain the net worth figure for a future year?

Scooterlam

Lifetime Planner (LTP) only shows the future, predicted value of your portfolio accounts (taxable and/or tax-deferred) but does not explicitly list assets (net of liabilities) like a homes or other real estate.  

Only when you sell the home or other real estate in the future, assuming that the asset and any loan against that asset is included in LTP, does the transaction show in the Income and Expense sections of the plan.   And, depending upon how you have that transaction defined in LTP, you will see increases or decreases to your future portfolio accounts from the proceeds.

Show us where in help this reference to a future net worth is mentioned.  Perhaps it needs to be clarified (or me that needs clarification!).  I know that in Quicken's marketing there is reference to net worth when it comes to "planning for the future", but nothing about seeing your future net worth in LTP.

The only net worth figure I am aware of in Quicken is in Property & Debt> Net Worth.  Of course that only shows current and past, not future.

Here is a excerpt from help regarding cash flows in LTP. FYI.

Chris_QPW

The Lifetime Planner doesn’t show the “net worth” at any given year.  As in properties are left out of the graphs.  About the only reason I can see that they are included is if you run out of money all the other accounts it will suggest you can sell them to make up for the shortfall.

Scooterlam

Chris_QPW said:

The Lifetime Planner doesn’t show the “net worth” at any given year.  As in properties are left out of the graphs.  About the only reason I can see that they are included is if you run out of money all the other accounts it will suggest you can sell them to make up for the shortfall.

To clarify,  LTP won't suggest selling assets upon exhausting investment accounts to make up for a shortfall (failure prior to end of plan).  It is up to the user to determine a course of action - to sell assets, adjust expenses, take more portfolio risk, adjust contribution levels et al.   When the user sells an asset, it shows up as a transaction in that future year's income and expense streams, likely resulting in a change to the appropriate investment account's balance.  Of course, assuming that the asset is included in the LTP plan!

Chris_QPW

I was talking about this statement:


Note it does suggest selling assets, but it will not tell you which to sell.

mshiggins

Reading this Help topic would seem to indicate a yearly net worth that includes your home value is calculated in the LTP. 




I am not able to discern any annual increase from my home value, although in the interest of full disclosure, I  did not try very hard to isolate that variable. 

Scooterlam

@mshiggins I'm not in front of my machine at the moment...but if you sell your home in a future year, then inspect the plan result table for that year, for that transaction, you should see the inflated home sale price. 

Chris_QPW

The Lifetime Planner only tracks the asset because you may purchase/sell them.  But note you have to tell the Lifetime Planner about that event, it can't be you stating that you going to never sell it, but run out of money.

Here is a test case:

Up to 2024 investment accounts (note there is an "already purchased" house at this point, that shows "zero value" in the graph/detail numbers).

On 1/1/2025 I set it to purchase a 1,000,000 asset, with a growth rate of 25%.  You can certainly see where the Lifetime Planner removed the money from the investment accounts.  The very fact that the amount goes down says that the asset isn't included in this amount.  And given 25% growth, in 2026 if it was included the amount should be over something like $400,000 + $1,250,000, but clearly isn't.

Note I tried both setting the asset as a house and not as a house.  It didn't make any difference.

I set it to be sold in 2030, as you can see that the money did in fact flow back into the accounts/amount shown, and it is much higher like you would expect from a 25% annual gain.

So yes Quicken tracks assets/houses, and will increase/decrease their value based on what you get, but the only time that will show up in your graph/details is after a purchase/sell.

mshiggins

@Scooterlam the Help topic does not mention having to sell your home to see an increase. I'm not sure how you would know to do that based on the Help. 

gogators68

thanks for all the great comments. The screenshot by mshiggins indicates that net worth is calculated for each future year, along with cash flow. While it's great that Quicken calculates future net worth, don't see the reason in telling users that it calculates it if you can't get to it. But I really do appreciate the workaround suggested above.