Photo Scanner: Real Estate Closing Costs

Sunday 11 November 2012

Real Estate Closing Costs

Real property in most jurisdictions is conveyed from the seller to the buyer through a real estate contract. The point in time at which the contract is actually executed and the title to the property is conveyed to the buyer is known as the "closing". It is common for a variety of costs associated with the transaction (above and beyond the price of the property itself) to be incurred by either the buyer or the seller. These costs are typically paid at the closing, and are known as closing costs. Closing costs on mortgages vary across the nation, and across the nation, those costs are coming down, thanks to recent changes to the Real Estate Settlement Practices Act, and described in the recent CNNMoney article, “Mortgage closing costs fell 7% for homebuyers.” According to a recent Bankrate.com survey, the average closing cost on a mortgage has declined by 7.4 percent. In real numbers, at the end of June 2012, a buyer closing a $200,000 mortgage with 20 percent down paid $3,754 on average, $300 less than the same time in 2011. Closing costs include such expenses as application fees, credit check fees, title search fees and insurance fees.