How much are closing costs when buying or selling in Florida?

The details: what you actually pay at closing

This is usually the number people are least prepared for, because it never shows up in the listing price. Closing costs are the set of state and title fees paid when the deed changes hands, and in Florida the state-set transfer taxes drive most of it. For a buyer they run on top of your down payment. For a seller they come straight out of your proceeds. Neither one needs to be a surprise if we build the numbers into the plan on day one, which is exactly why I put estimates in front of my clients before they make any decision.

Start with Florida's documentary stamp tax, which is set by state law, not by your lender or title company. On the deed it is $0.70 per $100 of sale price, so 0.7 percent, in every Florida county. On the mortgage note it is $0.35 per $100 of the loan amount, plus a two-mill intangible tax of $0.20 per $100. By long-standing custom the seller pays the deed stamps and the buyer pays the note stamps. On a $400,000 sale, that works out to about $2,800 in deed stamps for the seller. On a $300,000 loan, the buyer carries about $1,050 in note stamps plus $600 in intangible tax. These are fixed, published rates, so there is no mystery to them once you can read them.

Title insurance is the other large line. Florida sets the rates through the state Office of Insurance Regulation: an owner's policy runs about $5.75 per $1,000 on the first $100,000 of coverage and $5.00 per $1,000 above that, or roughly $2,075 on a $400,000 home. Who pays it varies by county custom, and in Central Florida the owner's policy is often on the seller's side of the ledger, while the buyer's lender's policy carries a reduced simultaneous-issue rate. Your title company prints the exact figures in the closing disclosure before you ever sit at the table.

The practical range to hold onto: buyers should budget 2 to 5 percent of the purchase price for closing costs on top of the down payment, which on a financed $450,000 home lands around $10,000 before your down payment. Sellers should expect title, recording, and transfer costs in the several-thousand-dollar range before commission, which in our area is typically 5 to 6 percent split between the listing and buying sides. The precise figure depends on price, loan size, and county, and that is the whole reason I write a net sheet for every seller and a cost estimate for every buyer before we list or make an offer: the real number, on paper, before you say yes to anything.