Understanding Your Numbers
What’s in a Buyer Closing Cost Estimate
Quick Answer
The figure at the top is Estimated Cash to Close: everything you owe at the closing table, less what you have already paid or been credited. Buying without a loan changes the heading to Total Cash Required.
Below that sits a Monthly Payment Estimate, which is separate. That is what you would pay each month afterwards, not part of the cash you bring.
The groups
Costs are sorted into six groups, in this order. A group only appears if it has something in it.
Title & Escrow Fees. Your lender’s title policy and any endorsements attached to it, plus escrow and settlement charges. These come from the rate schedule for that county.
Taxes & Recording Fees. What the county charges to record the documents, plus any transfer tax where one applies. Some states have none.
Lender Charges. Origination, discount points, and the appraisal. An FHA or VA loan adds its upfront mortgage insurance premium or funding fee here.
Prepaids & Escrow. Costs paid at closing rather than billed later: interest from your closing date to the end of that month, the first year of homeowner’s insurance, and the months of taxes and insurance your lender collects up front to start your escrow account. Each line names its own arithmetic, so a prepaid interest line reads like Prepaid Interest (15 days @ $71.23/day).
Other Costs. Inspection, survey, home warranty, HOA transfer fee.
Credits. Your earnest money deposit, any seller concessions, and any lender credits. These are subtracted.
Two things that surprise people
You will not see the owner’s title policy if the seller is paying for it. The estimate lists only what falls to the buyer, so who pays what in your purchase agreement changes which lines appear.
Some figures are placeholders. Appraisal, inspection, and survey are amounts the title company keeps on file as typical locally, not quotes from the people who will do the work. They appear whether or not anyone entered them, and any of them can come back different.
This is not a Loan Estimate or a Closing Disclosure. Those come from your lender. See Why this is an estimate.
