Mortgage closing costs by state: 2005

Closing Costs » Mortgage Closing Costs By State: 2005

When you're getting a mortgage and you want to pay the lowest fees possible, Wyoming is the place to live, and you should stay away from New York.

Wyoming had the lowest mortgage-related fees and New York had the highest in Bankrate.com's 2005 survey. That's without taking taxes into account.

To get a $180,000 mortgage on a single-family home worth at least $225,000, the average buyer in Laramie, Wyo., would pay $2,101 in origination fees, title insurance and other closing costs. The average buyer in New York City would pay almost twice as much: $3,907 for the same size loan. Nationally, the average fees and title insurance totaled $2,748.

Bankrate surveyed nine to 15 lenders in each state, plus Washington, D.C., and asked them to estimate the closing costs on a $180,000 loan to a buyer with an excellent credit history who had made a down payment of at least 20 percent on a single-family home in the state's largest city. The survey showed that:

• The biggest differences among states came from the wildly varying costs for title insurance.
• Fees for settlement services and title searches accounted for much of the rest of the disparities.
• Origination costs -- the fees that lenders control -- didn't vary much from state to state (but they did differ from lender to lender).

Bankrate.com researchers gathered closing-cost information from 50 states and the District of Columbia. Below, ranked from most-expensive to least-expensive, are the average total closing costs charged for a mortgage, in each state. (Editor's note: Closing cost total does not include taxes, other governmental fees or escrow fees.)