The average closing costs for a single-family property in the six months ended March 30 totaled $5,651 per transaction, including taxes, $3,438 excluding taxes, according to data from ClosingCorp, a provider of residential real estate closing cost data and technology for the mortgage and real estate services industries.
The closing costs are calculated using the average home sale prices (within a $100,000 range) for single-family properties at the state, core-based statistical area and county levels, and include lender’s title, owner’s title, appraisals, settlement fees, recording fees, land surveys and transfer tax (where applicable).
The survey now uses actual, “market-specific” rates and fees charged by the most-active settlement services providers within its network in each specific geographic area reported, not just an average of all the providers in the network.
“Our improved methodology allows us to deliver the closing costs that more accurately reflect average home prices at not only the state level, but also the CBSA and county levels,” says Gerardo Caceres, senior vice president, data operations and product management, at ClosingCorp, in a statement. “While you can compute an average home price, it doesn’t mean that such a property exists or that it has had a closing. To get a sense of the real fees and taxes that are being paid, we’ve surveyed 900,000 actual closings within a $100,000 range of the average prices.”
States with the highest average closing costs including taxes during the six months ended March 30 were District of Columbia ($20,228), New York ($15,254), Maryland ($13,358), Delaware ($13,293), and Pennsylvania ($10,206).
States with the highest average closing costs excluding taxes were District of Columbia ($6,206), Hawaii ($5,956), California ($5,276), New York ($4,915), and Washington ($4,860).
States with the lowest closing costs including taxes were Missouri ($1,856), Iowa ($1,913), Indiana ($1,992), Nebraska ($2,017) and Mississippi ($2,158).
States with the lowest closing costs excluding taxes were Iowa ($1,808), Missouri ($1,856), Nebraska ($1,897), Indiana ($1,992), and Arkansas ($2,030).
“As you can see, closing costs can vary substantially even within a given market,” explains Bob Jennings, CEO of ClosingCorp. “At ClosingCorp, we believe better transparency is the answer. It’s our responsibility to help lenders better educate borrowers on closing fees and taxes, so that there are no surprises when they decide to buy a home.”