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countyhomecosts

About

About countyhomecosts.com

countyhomecosts.com exists because listing prices hide most of what buyers actually pay. Property tax varies from 0.3% to over 2.5% depending on county. Closing costs typically add $8,000–$22,000. State transfer taxes range from zero to 4%. Flood-zone exposure changes insurance requirements. This site aggregates the real numbers, specific to where you're buying, in one place.

The team

countyhomecosts.com is run by a small team with backgrounds in data and real-estate research. We publish under the countyhomecosts Editorial Team byline rather than individual names because the work is the product: the calculations, the sources, and the judgment calls are the same regardless of who is at the keyboard on a given day. What matters is that every figure is traceable to a named public source — and we list those sources on every page.

How we stay independent

This is a buyer-only tool. We refuse the revenue streams that compromise most home-buying sites:

  • No agent marketplace or referral fees. We're not paid when you buy a house, and we do not send your information to a real-estate agent.
  • No mortgage product, no lender leads. We do not route you to a specific bank or broker and do not earn a commission on loan originations.
  • No display ads, no sponsored placements. There is no ad revenue anywhere on the site.
  • No affiliate links. Outbound links on county pages point to primary public sources (US Census Bureau, FEMA) — which do not pay.

Revenue comes from a separate companion mobile app that buyers pay for directly. That is the only business model we accept, because it's the only one that aligns our interests with the buyer's.

Editorial standards

  • Every number is traceable. If a figure is not sourced from a public, citable dataset — US Census ACS, FEMA National Risk Index, state Department of Revenue, CFPB, ALTA — it does not ship on the site. See methodology for the full data provenance and links to primary sources by FIPS code on every county page.
  • Refresh cadence is explicit. Census ACS data refreshes annually when new vintages ship; FEMA NRI quarterly; state transfer tax rates are verified at least annually against .gov sources.
  • Factual corrections are prioritized. When a reader reports a stale transfer-tax rate or a missing exemption, we investigate and update within 48 hours if the correction verifies.
  • We deliberately do not estimate renovation costs. Local labor costs cannot be sourced reliably, and wrong numbers destroy trust. Where renovation questions apply, we link to inspection and home-buying resources instead.
  • We are not your lawyer, accountant, or mortgage advisor. The figures on this site are informational and should be verified with a licensed professional before signing.

Reporting errors

Spotted a stale number, a missing exemption, or a transfer-tax rate we got wrong? Corrections are the substance of this site — please send details via the contact mechanism listed on our privacy page. Include the page URL and the source you're reading. We'll cite the correction on methodology once it's applied.