Financing and closing costs in Louisiana.

Conventional starts at three percent for first-time buyers and five for everyone else. FHA is three and a half. VA and USDA can be zero. Jumbo usually wants ten to twenty. Those are the minimums. The sensible number is whatever leaves a first year of insurance and a repair fund still in the bank after closing.

If the house needs work before it is livable, look at an FHA 203(k) or a Fannie Mae HomeStyle, both of which roll the renovation into the mortgage. If it is sound but quirky, a local portfolio lender will often see it more clearly than an underwriter three states away. Watch FHA on anything pre-1978 with peeling paint, because that alone can stop an appraisal.

Budget around five percent of the price, which is higher than most states. What moves it is your loan type, your lender's fees, the title work, and how much insurance and tax you prepay at closing. On $600,000 that is roughly $30,000, and the prepaid lines are usually the biggest part of it.

This is the trap. Your lender counts insurance in your monthly payment, so a $6,000 premium adds roughly $500 a month to the number they qualify you against. People get approved on a national estimate, fall for a house, then find the real quote has priced them out of it. Get the quote first.

You can, and sometimes the rate is better. What you give up is somebody who has underwritten a raised double before, who knows what a Louisiana title opinion looks like, and who picks up the phone at seven on a Friday when the act of sale is Monday. On an old house that is worth real money.

Origination, underwriting and processing, plus any points you buy to bring the rate down. Ask for the itemized list rather than the total.

Somebody traces the ownership of the property back through the parish records to make sure nobody else has a claim on it, then insures that conclusion. On an old New Orleans house with a succession somewhere in its past, this is the line you want done thoroughly rather than quickly.

The notary drafts and passes the act of sale, which is a bigger job here than a signing appointment elsewhere. You are paying for the legal act, not for the stamp.

Filing the act with the parish so the world knows the property is yours. Modest, fixed, and not negotiable.

A full year of homeowners insurance up front, plus flood, plus several months of taxes into escrow. For most buyers here this is the single biggest line on the sheet, and the one nobody budgets for.

Both come out of pocket before closing rather than out of the loan. The inspection usually within days of going under contract, the appraisal once your lender orders it.