Vermont Business Magazine Chittenden County has the best home-buying closing cost ranking in Vermont, in line with its rank of 1 in 2015, even though the actual closing costs were the highest in the state. But because the median home price was also highest, Chittenden has the lowest relative cost in the SmartAsset index. Closing Costs are a crucial aspect of buying a home, and in its second annual study New York financial technology company SmartAsset shows where they are lowest. The study measures closing costs as a percentage of median home value at the county level. However, Chittenden County ranked 1,227, as most of the low-cost regions were in the West.
| Rank | County | Avg. Closing Costs | Median Home Value | Closing Costs as % of Home Value | Closing Costs Index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chittenden, VT | $6,832 | $269,500 | 2.5% | 77.81 |
| 2 | Grand Isle, VT | $6,669 | $259,500 | 2.6% | 77.38 |
| 3 | Addison, VT | $6,274 | $235,200 | 2.7% | 76.18 |
| 4 | Lamoille, VT | $5,976 | $216,800 | 2.8% | 75.10 |
| 5 | Windsor, VT | $5,919 | $213,300 | 2.8% | 74.87 |
| 6 | Windham, VT | $5,876 | $210,700 | 2.8% | 74.70 |
| 7 | Bennington, VT | $5,875 | $210,600 | 2.8% | 74.69 |
| 8 | Washington, VT | $5,818 | $207,100 | 2.8% | 74.45 |
| 9 | Franklin, VT | $5,753 | $203,100 | 2.8% | 74.17 |
| 10 | Orange, VT | $5,412 | $186,400 | 2.9% | 73.30 |
| VT | $5,966 | $216,200 | 2.8% |
Before taking on a mortgage and buying a house, most people want to know everything they can about how purchasing a home will impact their finances.
There’s one number in the home-buying process that is especially hard to pin down: closing costs. The best guess most financial advisors and websites will give you is that closing costs are typically between 2 and 5% of the home value. True enough, but even on a $150,000 house, that means closing costs could be anywhere between $3,000 and $7,500 – that’s a huge range! While your lender is required to provide a Loan Estimate explaining your closing costs within three days of your submitting a loan application, that often occurs when you have already selected a home and are trying to finalize a deal. Not a great time to learn about thousands of dollars in fees you didn’t see coming.
Part of the reason closing costs (also called settlement costs) are so difficult to determine ahead of time is that they aren’t one line item, but rather a collection of different expenses that arise for different reasons. Some depend on the state in which you’re buying your home, others on the county. Some are related to your lender and the type of mortgage you’re getting, and some have to do with the real estate professionals who are helping you get your deal done. In all, closing costs are a messy amalgam of variable fees.
A closing costs calculator like ours lets you see closing costs based on the specifics of your financial situation. Below, we’ll take you through each one line by line, so you can understand what you’ll be paying for.
The government has come up with rules that lenders must follow when it comes time to reveal estimated closing costs to people who are shopping for a mortgage. The government-mandated closing costs form is called a Loan Estimate (formerly known as a Good Faith Estimate).
When you look at a Loan Estimate, you’ll see a break-down of closing costs. Some of these will be listed as Loan Costs. This means that they’re directly related to the cost of providing you with a home loan. Of these costs, some carry a fixed price and some are services you can shop for if you want to try to get a better deal.
Methodology Buying a home usually requires cash – for both the down payment and closing costs. But where you are buying can have a big impact on how much you will pay in closing costs.
The SmartAsset study shows closing costs as a percentage of median home value by county. To calculate closing costs we assumed a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage on each county’s median home value and a 20% down payment. We considered all applicable closing costs, including the mortgage tax, transfer tax and both fixed and variable fees.
OnceSmartAsset calculated the typical closing costs in each county it divided that figure by the county’s median home value.