@Daniel Winsor I’ve been a Loan Officer for close to 10 years now so I can try and help...
1 - Seems a little high but not that crazy, we charge $50. Chances are they are passing along the full cost of the company they use to run the reports.
2 - You must be using an FHA Loan? This type of loan requires an Upfront Fee of 1.75% of the Purchase Price, this gets rolled into the loan amount. I’d consider it the cost of doing business as this loan allows for a lot of things that other loans do not and this is the cost for that.
3 - It’s as simple as there are some parts of the process that the lender will require to use certain vendors, these things include credit report and appraisal. There are some they allow you to choose, survey & title charges, etc. They designate between the two because on the ones they require you to use there can be less varIance on the fee that is quoted vs what the final cost is. On the ones you choose the lender is not required to be exact on those quoted fees as they do not know who you will be using at that time.
4 - Id ask your Realtor for recommendations for Title & Survey and then relay that to your lender. The thing is there isn’t probably that much savings to be gained here as these markets are so competitive that the charges are all very close from one company to another.
5 - I’m not sure that it is. You may be able to save a few hundred dollars but I’d personally be surprised if it was more than that.
6 - Most Lenders do not require a survey as a survey affidavit will do just fine for title insurance purposes. You may want to ask your lender. Whether or not you should get one is a different story, they do identify a lot of issues that would otherwise go unnoticed.
7 - $4,500 for Title Insurance does seem very very high. You’re Upfront Mortgage Insurance indicates a purchase price in the $300ks so title insurance in that amount would not make any sense.
8 - That’s just a ball park figure the loan officer is estimating for now, how they determined that number is anyone’s guess. You will need to speak to an agent and get a quote yourself, whatever you are quoted will replace that figure. You are required to pay the annual premium upfront at closing, this is represented by the $6000 and the $1500 is an estimate for 3 months worth of payments that will be put into escrow for future payments. Those estimates are accurate assuming the $6000 is a reasonable estimate to begin with.
9 - You pay interest from the day of the month you close thru the end of the month. This is normal, 15 days may be an estimate for now but it will be determined based on the day of the month you close. This is normal.
10 - Did you negotiate Seller Paid Closing Costs? If you are receiving anything from the seller it would just be applied to the over all closing costs. For example, if you have 10000 in closing costs and 2000 in seller paid closing costs then you’d effectively be only paying 8000 of those total closing costs.
I don’t have any posts, books, etc that I can point you to but I can tell you I deal with this stuff everyday so if you have any additional questions please feel free to reply.
Good luck and I hope this feedback helps, even if it’s only a little.
