What arebelspy said. Your downpayment and principal pay downs go into your assets column.
But more importantly, many people misunderstand the purpose of a purchase of a primary residence. It is two separate goals in one. 1st is that you are purchasing a consumer good, namely a place to live. 2nd is often the biggest financial investment of your life. The two are separate things.
For example, you may buy a huge house that is bigger than you need, in a nice neighborhood, but you buy at a good price in 2009. As a consumer purchase, you did bad and are paying for more house than you need, but as an investment, buying the bigger house allowed you to make greater appreciation if you were to sell today. So you may have made the right decision overall. It depends on your goals.
Sometimes people buy at wrong times, at too high a price for what they are buying for the market, etc. So you can buy a small house but at a high price and lose money at sale.
Unlike stocks, real estate is most often purchased with leverage, a loan, so you will pretty much always make money if you "buy right" and hold it sufficiently long enough. And by buying right, I mean that you buy it at 20+% below it's market price (at the time of purchase) and it's rental value will have positive cash flow for property on leveraged basis.
So when you buy the house of your dreams, figure out which dreams it satisfies. Typically it satisfies your consumer purchase dreams not your investment dreams. People don't typically say, I bought this house that isn't exactly where I want to live and the house is too small for us but we bought it so cheap and we have made 3 times our investment in 2 years. They usually say, I bought our dream house with a chef's kitchen and charming garden and great location to my work, etc. These are your personal consumption criteria, not financial investment ones.
Be crystal clear on why you are buying the house and be ready to pay for the consumption side of the equation. Because it is a conscious or subconscious consumption decision.