Seller Paid Closing Cost - How to Make it Happen

Can you get a seller to pay your closing costs in a competitive market? Mike Novak from The Novak Team in Everett on what closing costs really are, what you are responsible for as a buyer and how to find the right strategy to convince the seller of a contribution.

It’s important to understand buyer paid closing costs and seller paid closing costs:

Seller paid closing cost The seller pays way more closing costs than the buyer does. He is responsible for the real estate commission, exercise tax and more – seller paid closing costs are about eight to nine percent of the sales price.

Buyer paid closing cost A buyer will pay prepaid taxes, insurance, lender fees, appraisal reports. We are talking about 2 percent of the sales price here.

How to negotiate for ZERO down

When you are asking a seller to play closing cost, we are mostly talking about covering lender fees.

There are a few different ways to do this:

1. Check how long is the house on the market. Depending on the current market situation there might be some wiggle room to convince the seller to pay a certain dollar amount or percentage of the closing costs.
2. If the price of the property was reduced during the purchasing process, the seller might be less willing to take over buyer closing cost.
3. Another way to convince a seller of taking over your part of the closing cost is to increase the purchase price one dollar for every dollar that you want back for closing costs: For a home price of 400.000 Dollar, you can offer 405.000 Dollar, but ask for 5.000 Dollar back toward closing cost.

We can help if you are curious about how to purchase a home without zero down, no down payment and without closing cost! Get in contact right away, send us a message, call us – our team would be happy to provide you with a personal consultation.