2026-07-28 · Josh Douglas
The short version: On a $350,000 Brevard purchase with 10 percent down, plan on roughly $13,000 in closing costs on top of your down payment. About $1,700 of that is Florida tax you cannot negotiate. More than half of it is not a fee at all, it is your own escrow and prepaid money going into an account with your name on it.
Most buyers see the real number for the first time on the Loan Estimate, which shows up within three business days of applying. That is late in the process to be surprised. Here is what is actually in it.
The two Florida taxes nobody warns you about
Florida charges a documentary stamp tax of 35 cents per $100 on the promissory note you sign, and a separate one-time nonrecurring intangible tax of 2 mills, or 0.002, on the mortgage that secures it. Both rates come from the Department of Revenue, both are collected when the documents record, and neither is negotiable by anyone.
On a $315,000 loan that is $1,103 in note stamps plus $630 in intangible tax. Call it $1,733, or roughly 0.55 percent of whatever you borrow. Cash buyers skip both, because there is no note and no mortgage to tax. That is a real advantage for cash offers that rarely gets mentioned.
One footnote: the tax on the note is capped at $2,450, so it stops growing past roughly a $700,000 loan. The intangible tax has no cap.
The full line, on a $350,000 purchase
Conventional loan, 10 percent down, 6.58 percent (Freddie Mac's average for the week of July 23, 2026). Every figure below is an estimate, and the fee items vary by lender and title company:
- Doc stamps on the note: $1,103
- Intangible tax: $630
- Lender fees (origination, underwriting, credit): about $1,500
- Lender's title policy and endorsements: about $350
- Appraisal: about $550
- Settlement and closing fee: about $650
- Survey: about $400
- Recording and other government fees: about $250
- Home inspection: about $450, and you pay it weeks before closing, not at it
- Insurance escrow, 13 months: about $4,658
- Property tax escrow, about 5 months: about $1,604
- Prepaid interest, 15 days: about $852
That totals close to $13,000. Add the $35,000 down payment and you need somewhere near $48,000 at the table. You can run your own price, down payment, and rate through the closing cost calculator, and check the payment side on the mortgage tool.
More than half of that is not a fee
Add up the two escrows and the prepaid interest and you get about $7,114 of the $13,000. That is 55 percent of your "closing costs" that nobody is keeping. It sits in an escrow account and pays your own insurance and tax bills when they come due. If you had bought with cash you would still owe that money, later, in bigger chunks.
The insurance escrow is the line that moves the most, and it is the one worth attacking early. Roughly $4,300 a year is a fair average on the Brevard mainland. Beachside and barrier island homes run more than double that. Get an actual quote from an agent before your inspection period ends, not after. A bad quote on a beachside condo can move your cash to close by thousands.
The tax escrow is the other one people misread. It is built on what the county will assess the property at after your purchase, not on the seller's old bill. I wrote about why that resets in this post on Save Our Homes, and you can estimate your own number with the property tax tool.
What the seller pays here
In Brevard, local custom puts two of the largest items on the seller. Deed doc stamps run 70 cents per $100 of the sale price, so $2,450 on a $350,000 sale. The owner's title insurance policy is also customarily the seller's, and Florida sets that premium by rule: $5.75 per $1,000 of coverage on the first $100,000 and $5.00 per $1,000 above that, which is about $1,825 on this purchase.
Custom is not law. It is a line in the contract, and either side can ask to move it. Worth knowing if you are shopping in Miami-Dade, Broward, Sarasota, or Collier, where the custom flips and the buyer normally pays for the owner's policy.
Where a listing has been sitting, asking for a seller credit toward closing costs is a normal request and often lands better than asking for the same money off the price. Lenders cap how large a credit they will allow by loan program and down payment, so run the number past your lender before you write it into an offer.
Fine print worth repeating: these are estimates built on current state tax rates and typical Brevard ranges. Your lender's fees, your title company, your insurance quote, and your closing date all move the total. The Loan Estimate is the document that binds, not anything on this page or any calculator. If you want, send me a price and a rough down payment and I will put a realistic cash-to-close figure in front of you before you write an offer, with no obligation. Text me at (321) 576-2239.