Ways to reduce or finance closing / escrow Costs

[Jack Stewart]

Hey BP gang, was hoping to purchase a house hack in the Baltimore area and just talked to my first lender. They informed me that the money I would owe would twice as much as I expected because I had not accounted for the escrow cost. So that reduces my ability in being able to buy a place unless there some way around this. (I expected CC to be around 11k and I got the 23k total from that lender). 

I know in previous markets, the seller paying closing costs was acceptable, but in today's it is not. I read that there's maybe a grant or program out there that could assist this. Or I could possibly ask the buyer if I could incorporate them in the sale price.

Any advice? Please let me know if I could word this better - it is a little confusing.

Happy Friday,

Jack

[Russell Brazil]

Increase the price to get a seller closing cost subsidy. This will essentially not be possible with new/multiple offer properties, so youll need to focus on properties that have been on the market awhile.

Also note in Baltimore, your escrowed funds are always going to be high due to the high taxes...no way around that.
Also keep in mind conventional loans limit closing help to 3%, VA to 4% and FHA to 6%. The only reason you would be using FHA though is if it is a multifamily, or you had bad credit. If you had good credit and were buying a single unit property, FHA wouldnt make sense.