Arizona Closing Costs

[KevDolan]

I have a friend that is buying a house in Arizona. It's a SFH. They close on Friday and although their initial quote for closing costs on a $300,000ish mortgage was $4,500 (which I thought was high), the closing company/lender came back after she paid the $4,500 up front and the lender said that the "total cost" is $8,000, which seems way to high. My friend said "I just didn't ask the right question." I immediately said "no, the lender didn't answer with full transparency." Since it seems "sketchy" I checked Bankrate.com's page that tells you what the average closing costs are by state. Arizona is about $2,000. (Kansas, where I'm located, is $1,800 which seems about right based on my experience. Maybe a couple of hundred dollars low, but close enough)

I don't know much about real-estate and closing costs in Arizona. Can anybody illuminate and weight in on these closing cost amounts?

p.s. As of now I don't know any other details about this transaction, the house, the location, the lender, etc.

[FrugalZony]

Usually you are provided a good faith estimate before you proceed.
Have they not received one and looked it over?
$8000 sounds real high, unless it's a really high amount they are borrowing or they are buying points to buy down the interest right or something..
It's hard to judge without knowing any details.

In any case I find it sketchy if they are quote 4500 at the beginning and then all of a sudden it's almost double that

[historienne]

Do "closing costs" include escrow in this situation?  We had a "no closing cost" loan, but still had to bring about $3500 to our closing to fund the escrow account.  Due to the schedule of tax payments in our city, we only had a few months before the yearly taxes were due, which was not enough time for the escrow account to fill up on the regular schedule.

[forummm]

If people don't know to look at their good faith estimate until a week before closing to find out what they are paying, they are probably too financially naive to be buying a house. They probably also didn't shop around for mortgages.

[Choices]

It sounds high to me too and is definitely worth investigating. You probably can't use the "average" cost as comparison though, because I think that her house is about double the "average" house price in AZ.

[KevDolan]

Do "closing costs" include escrow in this situation?  We had a "no closing cost" loan, but still had to bring about $3500 to our closing to fund the escrow account.  Due to the schedule of tax payments in our city, we only had a few months before the yearly taxes were due, which was not enough time for the escrow account to fill up on the regular schedule.

Yes. It was escrow that added $3,500 at the end of the process. After further research, the $4,500 in closing costs appears to be in order. We went to a reputable lender and had them draw up a good faith estimate this afternoon. It ended up in the same ballpark as the initial quote. Thanks, everyone, for your take on it.