Florida ranked 17th in the country for title fees charged in 2018, according to an exclusive joint project between ClosingCorp and The Title Report.
Yet the state’s trends show that it’s not simply areas where home prices are higher that follow higher title and settlement fees. The difference often has to do with geography, and even within a region, two counties or core-based statistical areas (CBSAs) can have different approaches to fees.
Overall in the state, Florida charged $1,719 in title fees with an average home price of $274,399. That includes $320 for the owners’ title fees and $1,399 for the lender’s title fees. Including an average of $712 in settlement fees, Florida ranked 19th nationally for total title and settlement charges.
Of the 38 counties in the state tracked through ClosingCorp’s data, Miami-Dade checked in with the highest total title and settlement fees of $3,849 – more than $400 more than Walton County in second place with $3,419.
But that distinction already shows differences in the fee structure around the state. In south Florida, the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach register the highest settlement services fees in the state. Miami-Dade averaged $1,015 for fees, with Broward at $846 and Palm Beach at $785.
By contrast, despite having the second-highest total fees, Walton County was 29th among counties in the state, averaging just $633 in settlement services fees. That trend continued throughout the six other panhandle counties tracked in ClosingCorp’s report – five of the six were in the bottom eight counties in the state for settlement fees. Only Wakulla County bucked the trend, ranking higher than Walton County with $659 in settlement fees.
The difference for Walton County was the fee it could charge for title policies. Its lender’s fee of $2,242 was second in the state only to Miami-Dade, and its owner’s fee of $544 was second only to Indian River County ($618).
By contrast, the three counties with the lowest total title and settlement fees were the panhandle counties of Escambia, Wakulla and Citrus. Citrus had the lowest total fees in the state at $1,678.
As a percentage of total closing fees – including taxes – however, the entire state remained in a fairly narrow range. At the low end was Leon County, whose title and settlement fees were 34.8 percent of the total closing costs. At the high end was Polk County, whose title and settlement fees ranked 30th in the state, but accounted for 39 percent of the total closing costs.
Similar threads ran through the 22 CBSA markets tracked by ClosingCorp.
At the top with the highest title and settlement fees is Key West, checking in at $4,076 – far more than the $2,431 average statewide. Naples-Marco Island is next at $3,948, with a big dropoff to the next two – Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach ($31,92) and Sebastian-Vero Beach ($3,092).
At the bottom of the list is Tallahassee at $1,663, with Homosassa Springs ($1,679), Ocala ($1,702) and Pensacola-Ferry Pass-Brent ($1,702) just above.
On a percentage basis, the CBSA title and settlement fees were in an even tighter range of the total portion of closing fees than the data showed at the county level.
Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin ranked sixth in total title and settlement fees, but had the lowest percentage of those in the overall closing costs at 35 percent. Only two of the 22 CBSAs had a percentage of closing costs higher than 38 percent – Sebastian-Vero Beach at 38.3 percent and Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford at 38.1 percent.
So as the data moved into broader and overlapping regions such as CBSA, the amount agents were able to charge for title and settlement fees as a portion of total closing costs became more constricted. Looking in narrower areas at the county level, agents appeared to have more flexibility to adjust fees in proportion to the total closing costs – tailored, one would assume – to fit the average home prices in the area.
For more on the national trends of title and settlement fees in 2018, see our subscriber-exclusive story here.