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What you can expect to pay in closing costs in a transaction depends on four factors: lender fees, title fees and title insurance, transfer tax and recording fees, and escrow and prepaid items.Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report. Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale.If you’re a buyer, what kind of closing costs can you expect to pay in our current market? To give you a better idea, I’ll divide them into four segments: lender fees, title fees and title insurance, transfer tax and recording fees, and escrow and prepaid items. We’ll use a $175,000 purchase as an example of our hypothetical total. 1. Lender fees. The lender fee, in this case, will be in the range of $1,000 to $1,500, and that’s including an appraisal. This amount can fluctuate based on a few different factors, and when the time comes, you’ll likely end up talking with your lender about how to buy your rate down or increase your rate to reduce your closing costs.2. Title fees and title insurance. This portion is going to be based on your loan amount, which, in this example, is going to fall in the $1,500 range. You can add to that another $500 to $750 in title fees, which includes a settlement charge, a title search, a tax certification, and other things of that nature to make a total of $2,000 to $2,200. These costs can fluctuate depending on a lot of different variables. 3. Transfer tax and recording fees. The recording fee in Allegheny County is usually $324, and the transfer tax usually falls between 2% to 4%. Inside the city of Pittsburgh, the tax is usually 4%. Outside the city of Pittsburgh, depending on the borough, it’s usually 2% to 2.5%. These fees are split evenly among buyers and sellers. In this case, if you’re outside Pittsburgh, it’s going to be 1%, which would be $1,750. If you’re inside Pittsburgh, it’s going to be $3,500, which would be 2% of the purchase price. 4. Escrow and prepaid items. Taxes are paid up front, so when you combine what is owed on the taxes to finish out the year and what you’re going to reimburse the sellers, you’ll take about a 14-month escrow and include that as what you’re going to have to come up with at closing to pay your taxes and start your escrow account. In this example, taxes are $3,000, so you’ll need to produce roughly $3,500 to apply to your tax and escrow accounts. The same applies for your insurance. If your insurance is $600, you’ll have to produce between $700 and $750 because you’re going to pay for your year up front. After that, you’re going to need a few months to start your escrow account.All in all, in this particular example, your closing costs will range from $9,950 to $11,500, or 5.5% to 7% of the purchase price. Obviously, these things can fluctuate depending on a lot of different factors, so if you have any questions about closing costs, please feel free to give me a call or shoot me an email. I’m here to help!