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Texas now has the highest mortgage closing costs in the nation. That’s according to a new analysis by financial research firm Bankrate.com. Average closing costs in Texas come to $3,046 on a $200,000 loan. That’s about 20 percent higher than the national average.
“Lenders and third parties are going to charge what they’re going to be able to get away with,” says Holden Lewis, a mortgage analyst at Bankrate, “and apparently, that’s what the market bears.”
Lewis says Texas has long been among the priciest states in which to close on a mortgage. “We’ve been doing this survey for probably about a dozen years, and Texas and New York are always near the top of the list,” he says.
This year, New York ranks third, behind Alaska at number two, while the cheapest closing costs are in Nevada.
Nationwide, closing costs have risen about 6 percent over the past year. Lewis credits the increase to new federal mortgage regulations that took effect in January. The regulations were enacted in the wake of the subprime mortgage collapse. They require lenders to spend considerably more time verifying potential borrowers can repay their home loans.
