ClosingCorp Reports 2018 Average Closing Costs

Closing costs for a single-family property in 2018 averaged $5,779 including taxes—and $3,344 excluding taxes—according to the latest data from ClosingCorp.

ClosingCorp cost calculations include lender’s title, owner’s title, appraisals, settlement fees, recording fees, land surveys and transfer tax. To determine the average single-family home sale ranges, ClosingCorp uses home price data from CoreLogic to create a $100,000 price range.

“The average home price is a number, but not necessarily a real property with a real closing,” said Dori Daganhardt, senior vice president of data strategy at ClosingCorp. “To get a sense of what is really going on in the market, we compared real cost data on more than 1.5 million purchase transactions that went through our SmartFees platform in 2018. We also used ‘market-specific’ rates and fees charged by the most active settlement services providers in each geographic area, not just network averages.”

The 2018 report shows the jurisdictions with the highest average closing costs, including taxes, were:

1. District of Columbia ($24,613)
2. New York ($13,581)
3. Delaware ($13,309)
4. Washington ($12,667)
5. Maryland ($11,395).

The states with the lowest closing costs, including taxes, were

1. Missouri ($1,887)
2. Indiana ($2,002)
3. South Dakota ($2,149)
4. Iowa ($2,248)
5. Nebraska ($2,267)

The jurisdictions with the highest average closing costs, excluding taxes, were:

1. District of Columbia ($5,694)
2. New York ($5,586)
3. Hawaii ($5,318)
4. California ($5,284)
5. Washington ($4,701)

The states with the lowest closing costs, excluding taxes, were:

1. Missouri ($1,887)
2. Nebraska ($1,919)
3. South Dakota ($1,995)
4. Indiana ($2,002)
5. Iowa ($2,011)

“Because closing costs are based on sale price and taxing jurisdictions, the rankings of high and low-cost states tend to be relatively static,” said Bob Jennings, chief executive officer of ClosingCorp. “However, that doesn’t mean that various jurisdictions aren’t continually contemplating increases and adjustments. Our research showed more than one-third of all counties considered an adjustment to their taxes in 2018 and adjustments in more than 200 counties actually went into effect. These include some interesting twists. For example, four New York counties let their local mortgage tax expire and then reinstated the same tax; and the city of Baltimore introduced a ‘yield tax,’ which is essentially a ‘tax on tax.’ We expect to see even more adjustments in 2019, including a new law which increases the mansion tax on a sliding scale for transfers where the consideration is in excess of $2 million in New York City—already one of the cities with the highest closing costs.”

Source: ClosingCorp