How Much Are Closing Costs for a Buyer in Massachusetts? A 2026 Quincy Guide
Last updated: September 27, 2026
FRESHNESS: rate/stat-dependent
BUYER EDUCATION
How Much Are Closing Costs for a Buyer in Massachusetts? A 2026 Quincy Guide
September 27, 2026 | By Krista Recker
Plan on roughly 2% to 4% of the purchase price in total cash to close beyond your down payment on a Massachusetts purchase. On a $670,000 Quincy home that is about $13,000 to $27,000. A conventional 20% down loan with no points usually lands near the bottom of that range, and in the illustration below it comes to about $13,100.
That range covers everything that is not the down payment: lender fees, attorney and title charges, government recording charges, prepaid items like your first year of homeowners insurance, and the initial escrow funding your lender collects. If you use "closing costs" in the narrower sense of lender, attorney, title, and government charges only, the number is lower. That definitional gap is why two buyers at the same price point will quote you wildly different figures.
The distinction that matters more: prepaid items and escrow funding are not fees. That money either buys something you were going to pay for anyway or sits in your own escrow account. When a buyer tells you their closing costs were enormous, a large share of it was usually escrow.
Here is the line-by-line version, a worked illustration at the current Quincy median, who pays what under Massachusetts practice, and the three points in the process where the number can still change.
Who this applies to
This is written for you if any of the following is true:
- You are buying in Quincy or elsewhere in Massachusetts and trying to figure out the total cash you need at the closing table, not just the down payment.
- You have a Loan Estimate in hand and want to know which lines you can push on and which are fixed.
- You are a first-time buyer who saved a down payment and just found out there is another five figures behind it.
- You are deciding between a condo and a single family in Quincy and want to know whether the costs differ.
- You are a seller trying to understand what a buyer means when they ask for a closing cost credit.
If you are selling rather than buying, your cost structure is different and mostly larger, driven by the deed excise and by whatever compensation you have agreed to. This post covers the buy side.
What counts as a closing cost in Massachusetts?
A closing cost is any charge you pay to complete the purchase that is not the down payment itself. It breaks into five buckets, and knowing which bucket a line sits in tells you whether it is worth arguing about.
- Lender fees. Origination, underwriting, processing, appraisal, credit report, flood certification, and any discount points you choose to buy.
- Attorney and title. Massachusetts treats the core closing functions, including title certification, deed preparation, and effectuating the conveyance, as the practice of law. A Massachusetts attorney must substantively participate in a residential mortgage closing. The lender's closing attorney commonly fills that role, and you may retain independent counsel of your own.
- Government and municipal charges. Recording the deed and your mortgage at the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds, plus the municipal lien certificate from the City of Quincy.
- Prepaid items. Your first year of homeowners insurance and the mortgage interest from your closing date to the end of that month.
- Initial escrow funding. The money the lender collects up front to seed your escrow account for taxes and insurance.
Buckets 1 through 3 are where negotiation lives. Buckets 4 and 5 move mostly with your closing date and your property's actual tax and insurance figures.
How much are closing costs on a typical Quincy home?
Here is an illustration for a $670,000 Quincy purchase with 20% down, a $536,000 conventional loan, an October closing, and a rate near the current national average. It comes to about $13,100 due at closing, plus roughly $700 to $1,200 spent earlier on inspections.
Treat every figure below as a planning placeholder assembled from typical Greater Boston ranges, not as a quote. Your own Loan Estimate is the only number that binds anyone.
| Line item | Illustrative cost | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Lender origination, underwriting, processing | $1,200 | Ranges from $0 to about $1,800; some lenders price it into the rate instead |
| Appraisal | $750 | Greater Boston single family commonly $600 to $900; complex, waterfront, multi-family, and rush orders run higher |
| Credit report and flood certification | $125 | Vendor cost, rises with more than two borrowers |
| Buyer's closing attorney | $1,500 | Flat fees commonly $1,000 to $2,000 in Greater Boston; independent buyer's counsel can be a separate fee |
| Lender's title insurance on $536,000 | $1,900 | Priced off the insurer's filed rates, often quoted around $3.65 to $4.00 per $1,000 of loan amount |
| Owner's title insurance, simultaneous issue | $1,400 | Optional; price depends on the insurer, the purchase price, reissue credits, and endorsements |
| Title exam, rundown, closing service fees | $500 | Charged by the attorney's office, ask for it itemized |
| Recording deed and mortgage, Norfolk Registry | $362 | Recorded-land base fees of $155 and $205, plus a $1 return charge each on paper recordings |
| Municipal lien certificate | About $106 | City fee plus $81 to record on recorded land; confirm the current city charge when it is ordered |
| Prepaid interest, 12 days | $1,190 | About $99.31 per day on a $536,000 loan at 6.76%; closing later in the month shrinks this |
| First year homeowners insurance | $1,800 | Highly property-specific; Quincy coastal exposure, flood zone, age, and claims history move it |
| Initial escrow funding, taxes and insurance | $2,300 | Depends on the disbursement calendar and the lender's analysis, not a fixed formula |
| Total due at closing, with the optional owner's policy | About $13,130 | About 2.0% of the purchase price |
| Total without the optional owner's policy | About $11,730 | About 1.8% of the purchase price |
| Home inspection and radon test | $700 to $1,200 | Paid weeks earlier, out of pocket, not on the Closing Disclosure |
Figures checked against the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds fee schedule, the City of Quincy Assessors Office, and the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey in September 2026.
Two footnotes on that table. Norfolk County records both recorded land and registered land, and the fees differ between them, so ask your attorney which applies to your parcel. And escrow funding is not a flat two or three months. Federal rules let a lender hold a cushion of up to one-sixth of the annual projected disbursements, roughly two months, above what is needed for the upcoming payments. What you actually deposit depends on when your tax and insurance bills fall relative to your closing date.
The Quincy tax number behind that escrow line
Quincy's fiscal 2026 residential rate is $11.78 per $1,000 of assessed value. If a property were assessed at $670,000, that produces about $7,893 a year, or $658 a month, before any exemption.
Your assessed value is not your purchase price, so pull the actual assessment on the parcel rather than estimating from what you paid. In a rising market the two can differ by a wide margin in either direction. The fiscal 2027 rate was not yet available as of this post's publication date, so confirm the applicable rate and assessment with the Quincy Assessors Office and your closing attorney before you build a budget around it.
Quincy's median sale price was approximately $670,000 for the three-month period ending August 2026, according to Redfin. Median price varies by reporting period, source, and property type, and condominium medians run well below the citywide figure, so treat $670,000 as a reference point rather than as the price of the specific home you are looking at.
Who pays what in Massachusetts, the buyer or the seller?
Massachusetts has a strong local custom on this, and it works in the buyer's favor on the largest government charge. Every row below is the default, and every row can be allocated differently in the purchase and sale agreement.
| Cost | Who pays by Massachusetts custom | Typical amount |
|---|---|---|
| Massachusetts deed excise, the state transfer tax | Seller, customarily, though the contract can allocate it differently | $2.28 per $500 or fraction of consideration, which is $4.56 per $1,000, or $3,055.20 on a $670,000 Quincy sale |
| Recording the deed and the buyer's mortgage | Buyer | $155 and $205 base for recorded land at Norfolk County Registry of Deeds, plus $1 each on paper recordings |
| Closing attorney, who in most financed purchases also represents the lender | Buyer | Commonly $1,000 to $2,000 flat in Greater Boston, scope varies |
| Seller's attorney, who prepares the deed and handles the payoff | Seller | Commonly $750 to $1,500 flat |
| Lender's title insurance policy | Buyer | Required by nearly every lender, priced off the insurer's filed rates on the loan amount |
| Owner's title insurance policy | Buyer, and it is optional | Roughly $1,200 to $1,800 at Quincy price points when issued alongside the lender's policy |
| Smoke and carbon monoxide alarm certificate on a one or two family sale | Seller | Quincy's fee varies by property type, confirm the current Fire Department schedule |
| Condo 6(d) certificate showing no unpaid common charges | Seller orders it | $75 to $250, set by the association or its manager |
| Municipal lien certificate | Buyer, typically | City fee plus $81 recording on recorded land in Norfolk County |
| Buyer's agent compensation | Negotiated in writing between each party and their own agent, since August 2024 | Stated in your buyer agency agreement, and it may or may not be offered by the seller |
The deed excise line is the one worth internalizing. Massachusetts charges $2.28 per $500 of consideration, the seller pays it under standard practice, and buyers relocating from states where transfer tax is split or buyer-paid often budget for a charge that never appears on their side of the ledger here.
The buyer's agent compensation line is the one that changed most recently. Since August 2024 the amount and the payer are negotiated and documented in writing rather than assumed, so ask early whether the seller on your specific property is offering compensation, because if they are not, that is cash to close too.
Do closing costs come on top of my down payment?
Yes. The down payment and the closing costs are two separate piles of cash, and the total of the two is what your lender calls cash to close.
On the illustration above, that is $134,000 down plus about $13,130, minus whatever deposits you have already paid. Massachusetts transactions typically involve a deposit with the Offer to Purchase and a larger one at the Purchase and Sale agreement, but the amounts are negotiated, not set by any statewide rule. There is no $1,000 requirement and no 5% requirement. Deposits are held in escrow under the contract and applied as credits toward your required funds at settlement.
So a buyer at this price point who had already paid $33,500 in combined deposits would wire roughly $113,600 at closing. If you are budgeting from scratch, the planning number is your down payment plus 2% to 4%, not your down payment alone.
Are closing costs higher for a condo in Quincy than a single family?
The fee mix is different, not reliably higher or lower. The variable that decides it is the condominium's own documents, which is why you read them before you assume anything.
Condo-specific items to budget for:
- A condo questionnaire or document fee charged by the association or management company and passed through to you. Amounts vary with the association, the lender's form, the size of the document package, and whether you need it rushed.
- A capital contribution or working capital contribution, if and only if the master deed, declaration of trust, bylaws, or negotiated contract terms require one. Many Quincy associations do not. Where it exists it is often expressed as a multiple of the monthly fee, so a unit with a $450 monthly fee could owe $900 under a two-month formula.
- Any transfer or move-in fee the association charges.
- Prorated condo fees for the month of closing, allocated under the purchase and sale agreement rather than automatically falling on the buyer.
What a condo does not do is remove the need to inspect. You may not have a private sewer lateral or a buried oil tank to worry about, but the building still has shared systems, a roof, drainage, a master insurance policy, a reserve balance, and a governance history. Scope your inspection to the unit, the shared systems, and whatever the condominium documents reveal. A $30,000 special assessment voted three months after you close is a far larger number than anything on this page, and the reserve study and the last two years of meeting minutes are where you would have seen it coming.
When do I find out the exact number, and can it still change?
You get three progressively firmer numbers, and the timing is set by the TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosure rule rather than by your lender's preference.
- The Loan Estimate, delivered or mailed within three business days after the lender receives a complete application as the rule defines it. A casual preapproval conversation does not start that clock. Some lines on the Loan Estimate cannot increase at all, some can rise up to 10% as a category, and some can change without limit. Ask your loan officer which of your lines sit in which bucket.
- Your own shopping window, the two to three weeks after that. This is where the number actually moves. Get flat-fee quotes from two or three Massachusetts real estate attorneys and compare the title insurance pricing each one quotes.
- The Closing Disclosure, which you must receive at least three business days before consummation. In a Massachusetts purchase that is effectively your signing date. Only three things restart that three-day waiting period: the APR becoming inaccurate beyond tolerance, a change in loan product, or the addition of a prepayment penalty. An ordinary fee correction or a revised cash-to-close figure does not.
Then your attorney confirms the final cash-to-close figure, usually one to two days out, after the final water and tax readings. Wire it only after you have called the attorney's office at a number you looked up independently and verbally confirmed the wiring instructions. Wire fraud in real estate closings works by sending you convincing instructions from a spoofed email address, and a wired down payment is not recoverable the way a stolen credit card charge is.
How do I actually lower my closing costs?
Four levers, roughly in order of how much money they move.
- Ask the seller for a closing cost credit in your offer. A seller credit reduces eligible buyer closing costs and prepaid items, subject to your loan program's current limits and your lender's approval. For many conventional owner-occupied loans with 10% or more down, the maximum interested-party contribution is commonly up to 6% of the lower of the price or appraised value, but the limit varies by loan-to-value, occupancy, property type, and program, and a credit cannot become unrestricted cash back to you. Where a home has sat past the local median days on market, this is often an easier ask than a price cut, because the seller's net is similar and your cash barrier drops.
- Shop the attorney and title quote. This is real money and most buyers never do it. A $600 spread between two attorneys on the same file is common, and title premiums are not uniform between agencies.
- Consider your closing date. Prepaid interest runs from your closing date to the end of the month, so in the illustration above, 20 fewer prepaid-interest days would cut roughly $1,986 off the closing statement. That reduces prepaid interest rather than your total cost of owning the home, since you also start owning it later. Choose the date around the contract, your move, your rate lock, and the seller's needs, then take the interest savings as a bonus.
- Ask about a lender credit. A lender can cover some costs in exchange for a slightly higher rate. That is a trade, not a discount, and it is worth it only if you expect to sell or refinance within a few years. Run the breakeven before you take it.
One lever that is not on the list: financing your closing costs into the loan. On a purchase, unlike a refinance, you generally cannot add them to the mortgage as a separate amount, because your loan is sized off the price and the appraised value. Seller credits, lender credits, permitted gift funds, and assistance programs are the routes that exist.
First-time buyers should also ask a MassHousing-approved lender what is currently available in down payment and closing cost assistance. Those programs run in funded rounds with income limits tied to area median income, and both the assistance amount and the eligibility window change, so the answer this month is not the answer from last spring. Get it from a participating lender rather than from an article.
The Bottom Line
Budget 2% to 4% of the purchase price in cash to close beyond your down payment, and expect a conventional Quincy purchase to land near the low end. On a $670,000 home the illustration above comes to about $13,100 at the table, plus $700 to $1,200 for inspections weeks earlier.
The two things worth doing something about are the shopping and the ask. Collecting three attorney and title quotes and writing a closing cost credit into your offer can move several thousand dollars on a single transaction. If cash to close is the actual constraint on what you can buy, say that out loud when you write the offer, because a closing cost credit is a legitimate term that experienced sellers understand and it does not read as a weaker offer the way a low price does.