I received two 1098's, and entered them separately (one for the home I sold, and one for the home I purchased). I elected to allow TurboTax to import the 1098 directly from the lender for the home I sold and paid off, however Box 2 of the 1098 shows an outstanding mortgage principle in the amount of the pay off. Is that correct, or should I delete the amount in Box 2 and put zero?
Yes, it's correct. No, don't delete it. Per IRS instructions, Box 2 shows the outstanding principal on the mortgage as of January 1 of the calendar year.
Hi HelenC12, What is combined both mortgages exceed the $750,000. By filling in both boxes its doubling counting the mortgages and might prevent you from taking the full interest deduction. If you had a mortgage for $500k and then sold the house secured by the mortgage and bought another house with another $500k mortgage you just essentially transferred the mortgage from one property to another. But by filling out Box 2 twice the software thinks you had $1M in mortgages which is overstating what happens.
You would use the Outstanding Mortgage Balance method to solve this. Basically, if you owed $500,000 and sold your house in March, then bought a new house in April for $500,000 you would average the balance out over the year.
So you would use $500k for Jan, Feb and Mar then $0 for the rest of the year for an monthly average balance of $125,000.
Then for the new house you would enter $375,000. ($500k for 9 months, $0 for 3 months)/12
So you would enter $125k for the balance for the first house and $375k for the balance for the second house.
When you enter your 1098 you will see the box 2 Outstanding Balance where you can enter the amount.
Here's how to enter your mortgage interest statement in TurboTax: