Don’t Feel Like a Chump When You Close on Your New Mortgage
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Mortgage closing costs dropped 7 percent over the past year, falling to $1,847 on a $200,000 loan, according to a new analysis by Bankrate.
Typical closing costs varied by state, ranging from $2,163 in Hawaii to $1,613 in Ohio. You can find the average rate for your state in the table below.
Lenders compete for business, so shopping around with at least three mortgage providers can help you reduce the fees associated with your loan. “Homebuyers have more say over closing costs than they think,” Bankrate Senior Mortgage Analyst Holden Lewis said in a statement.
Even as banks lower their mortgage fees, they’re increasing fees in most other categories, according to MoneyRates.com.
While lower mortgage fees are good news for homebuyers and those refinancing their loans, the average saving amount to just $140. That’s not much relative to the total costs associated with buying a house. The average down payment for homebuyers in the first quarter of 2015 was $57,710, for example.
Related: Want Your Own Home? Here’s How to Do the Math
The costs don’t stop once the buyers move in. On top of mortgage payments, homeowners face an average of more than $6,000 in additional costs related to their house, including homeowners insurance, property taxes and utilities.
The National Association of Realtors expects home prices to increase 6.5 percent this year to a median $221,900, which would put them at the same level as their 2006 record high.
For buyers, better news than the lower mortgage fees is that rates remain relatively low, falling to 3.98 percent last week, per Freddie Mac.
Closing costs | |||
---|---|---|---|
State | Average origination fees | Average third-party fees | Average origination plus third-party fees |
Alabama | $1,066 | $776 | $1,842 |
Alaska | $935 | $922 | $1,857 |
Arizona | $1,208 | $761 | $1,969 |
Arkansas | $1,057 | $760 | $1,817 |
California | $937 | $896 | $1,834 |
Colorado | $1,192 | $719 | $1,910 |
Connecticut | $1,074 | $960 | $2,033 |
Delaware | $904 | $924 | $1,828 |
District of Columbia | $1,077 | $718 | $1,794 |
Florida | $1,028 | $778 | $1,806 |
Georgia | $1,058 | $821 | $1,879 |
Hawaii | $1,033 | $1,130 | $2,163 |
Idaho | $894 | $788 | $1,682 |
Illinois | $1,080 | $767 | $1,847 |
Indiana | $1,067 | $770 | $1,837 |
Iowa | $1,161 | $762 | $1,923 |
Kansas | $1,047 | $753 | $1,800 |
Kentucky | $1,060 | $737 | $1,797 |
Louisiana | $1,060 | $817 | $1,877 |
Maine | $897 | $830 | $1,727 |
Maryland | $1,093 | $742 | $1,835 |
Massachusetts | $905 | $851 | $1,756 |
Michigan | $1,072 | $746 | $1,818 |
Minnesota | $1,067 | $689 | $1,757 |
Mississippi | $1,046 | $837 | $1,884 |
Missouri | $1,040 | $792 | $1,833 |
Montana | $1,062 | $855 | $1,917 |
Nebraska | $1,047 | $770 | $1,817 |
Nevada | $1,002 | $848 | $1,850 |
New Hampshire | $1,084 | $750 | $1,835 |
New Jersey | $1,181 | $913 | $2,094 |
New Mexico | $1,076 | $876 | $1,952 |
New York | $1,032 | $879 | $1,911 |
North Carolina | $1,036 | $875 | $1,911 |
North Dakota | $1,045 | $791 | $1,836 |
Ohio | $933 | $681 | $1,613 |
Oklahoma | $1,027 | $734 | $1,761 |
Oregon | $1,080 | $785 | $1,864 |
Pennsylvania | $1,055 | $678 | $1,733 |
Rhode Island | $1,093 | $802 | $1,896 |
South Carolina | $1,058 | $837 | $1,895 |
South Dakota | $1,055 | $704 | $1,759 |
Tennessee | $1,033 | $773 | $1,806 |
Texas | $1,031 | $833 | $1,864 |
Utah | $909 | $788 | $1,697 |
Vermont | $1,074 | $862 | $1,936 |
Virginia | $1,050 | $787 | $1,837 |
Washington | $1,077 | $824 | $1,901 |
West Virginia | $1,067 | $904 | $1,971 |
Wisconsin | $1,047 | $723 | $1,770 |
Wyoming | $874 | $814 | $1,689 |
Average | $1,041 | $807 | $1,847 |
Bankrate.com surveyed up to 10 lenders in each state in June 2015 and obtained online Good Faith Estimates for a $200,000 mortgage to buy a single-family home with a 20 percent down payment in a prominent city. Costs include fees charged by lenders, as well as third-party fees for services such as appraisals and credit reports. The survey excludes title insurance, title search, taxes, property insurance, association fees, interest and other prepaid items.
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Quote of the Day - October 16, 2017
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Monday, President Trump said:
"Obamacare is finished, it's dead, it's gone ... There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore."
Click here for the video.
Poll: Trump Tax Cuts Favor the Wealthy; Deficit Should Be Higher Priority
Trump and the GOP still have work to do if they want to convince Americans that their tax plan won’t mostly help the rich. A CBS News Nation Tracker poll released Sunday finds that 58 percent say the tax reforms being discussed favor the wealthy, while 19 percent say it treats everyone equally and 18 percent say it favors the middle class.
The poll also found that 39 percent say that cutting the deficit should be a priority, even if it means taxes stay the same. About half as many people said cutting taxes should be prioritized even if the deficit rises.
The poll, conducted by YouGov, surveyed 2,371 U.S. adults between October 11 and 13. Its margin of error is 2.5 percent.
Coporate Tax Cut Could Be Phased In
House tax writers (at least some of them) are worried that slashing the corporate tax rate found will push the deficit higher in a hurry – an analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that cutting the rate to the stated goal of 20 percent would cost $2 trillion over a decade. One way to soften the fiscal blow would be to phase in the reduction over three to five years. House Republicans say such an approach would reduce the size of the lost revenue by half.
Larry Summers: GOP Tax Claims Are 'Made-Up'
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Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers isn't happy with the Republican tax plan, and it's not just because he has a different set of ideas as a Democrat. More fundamentally, he says Republicans are making false claims: “When you have -- and I hate to be in a position of using this word about our government -- when you have senior economic officials making claims that are made-up ... it’s very hard to have a dialogue, and compromise, and get to a good place.”
Summers is also worried about the effects of a tax cut for the rich during a time of considerable social turmoil: “There’s a lot of unhappiness and anger out there … It’s really hard to see why focusing a corporate tax cut on those at the very high-end is going to do much to assuage that anger.”
How Much Did Mike Pence’s NFL Walkout Cost Taxpayers?

Vice President Mike Pence’s decision to attend an NFL game between the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers yesterday and then leave after some 49ers players kneeled during the national anthem was quickly criticized by some as a planned piece of political theater — and a somewhat expensive one at that. “After all the scandals involving unnecessarily expensive travel by cabinet secretaries, how much taxpayer money was wasted on this stunt?” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) tweeted Sunday afternoon.
The answer, CNN reports, is about $242,500: "According to the Air Force, flying a C-32, the model of plane used for Air Force 2, for one hour costs about $30,000. Pence's flight from Las Vegas to Indianapolis Saturday took about three hours and 20 minutes, so it cost about $100,000. Pence then flew from Indianapolis to Los Angeles on Sunday, which took about four hours and 45 minutes, costing about $142,500."
President Trump defended Pence’s trip, tweeting that it had been “long planned.” CNN also reports that some of the costs of Pence's flight from Indianapolis to Los Angeles will be paid back by the Republican National Committee because the vice president is attending a political event there.