A buyer in Darien budgets for the down payment, gets to the closing table, and finds another line of numbers waiting. None of them are a surprise to the lawyers in the room. They are a surprise to almost everyone else. Here is what actually comes off a $700,000 sale in this town, on both sides of the table, in the ranges we see rather than a quote.
What the seller pays
The largest line is the commission, agreed in writing before the house goes on the market. On a $700,000 sale the whole fee runs between $28,000 and $35,000 and is split with the office that brings the buyer. That number is on the listing agreement you sign in your kitchen, weeks before anyone talks about closing.
After that, Connecticut takes its cut twice. The state conveyance tax is 0.75 percent on the first $800,000, so $5,250 on this sale. Darien adds a municipal conveyance tax of 0.25 percent, another $1,750. Your attorney will run between $1,200 and $2,000 for a straightforward sale and more if there is an estate, a trust or a boundary question in the file. Recording the release of your mortgage costs about $60. If you have a home equity line you never closed, budget an hour of somebody's time to get it released before the closing date rather than on it.
Then the adjustments. You pay property taxes through the day of closing and the buyer takes them from there, which in a July closing usually means you owe money back rather than get it. Oil in the tank is measured and bought at the current price. Any repair credit you agreed to after the inspection comes off here too, and it is money, not a promise.
What the buyer pays
Lender charges come first, and they vary more than anything else on this list. An origination fee of 0.5 to 1 percent of the loan is common, so $2,800 to $5,600 on a $560,000 mortgage. Points are separate and optional. The appraisal runs $600 to $900 here, a little more on a larger or unusual house, and the credit report and flood certification add a hundred or so between them.
Connecticut is an attorney state, which out-of-state buyers rarely expect. You will have a real lawyer at your closing and the fee is usually $1,500 to $2,500. Title search and lender's title insurance together tend to land between $2,000 and $3,500 on a purchase this size. Owner's title insurance is optional and costs roughly $1,500 more; we tell buyers to take it, because the policy that protects the bank does not protect you. Recording the deed and the mortgage costs about $200.
Last comes the escrow, which is not a fee at all but still leaves your account on the same day. Lenders collect two to three months of property taxes and a full year of homeowners insurance up front, plus interest from the closing date to the end of the month. On a Darien house with a $12,000 annual tax bill, that is $2,000 to $3,000 of taxes, $1,400 to $2,200 of insurance, and whatever the calendar decides about the interest.
A working total
Add the buyer's side and you land between $11,000 and $18,000 on a $700,000 purchase with 20 percent down, before the down payment itself. Call it two and a half percent as a planning number, and treat anything under two percent as optimistic.
The seller's side, commission included, runs $36,000 to $45,000. Without the commission it is closer to $8,500. Both ranges assume nothing unusual in the title and no second mortgage to clear.
Those totals are the ones to plan against, and they are not the ones on the first page of your loan estimate. The estimate shows the fees; the cash you need on the day is the fees plus the escrow plus the down payment minus the deposit you already put down at contract. Buyers who get caught out are almost always caught out by that last line, because the deposit went out of the account in April and the closing is in July.
What moves and what does not
The conveyance taxes and the recording fees are fixed by law. The commission is agreed before the listing goes live and is the one number you negotiate while you are still choosing an agent, not once you are under contract. Lender fees are genuinely competitive: two banks quoting the same rate can be $3,000 apart on fees, and the loan estimate they are required to give you is how you find out. Attorney fees are worth one phone call and no more.
Before you sign anything
Ask your lender for a loan estimate in writing, on the day you apply, and read the second page. Ask your attorney for a flat fee and what falls outside it. Ask us what the last three houses on your street actually closed at, because the tax adjustment and the insurance quote both follow the price rather than the listing.
None of this changes whether the house is right. It changes what you need in the account on the day, and that is a number worth having eight weeks early instead of eight hours.