Methodology & data sources

Anyone can multiply a price by a guessed percentage. The hard, valuable part is the underlying legal facts — each state's transfer-tax rate, who pays it, the recording-fee structure, and whether a state uses set or negotiable title rates. Those are statutes and official schedules, not arithmetic, so we treat them with care and show our work.

Where each figure comes from

• Transfer-tax rates & who pays: each state's Department of Revenue / taxation authority and the underlying statute, cross-checked against established industry references.
• County & city transfer taxes: the county Recorder / Register of Deeds and city tax authorities (for places like New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia that levy their own).
• Recording fees: the county recorder's published fee schedule.
• Title-insurance method: the state insurance department — whether premiums are promulgated (state-set), filed, or negotiable.
• Attorney-required states: state bar associations and real-estate practice law.
• Lender fees, inspection, appraisal, insurance: national averages, clearly presented as estimated ranges (these are not state-specific legal facts).

The data gate: verified vs. estimated

Every record in our dataset carries a verified flag and the date we last checked it against the official source. This drives a hard rule we built into the build itself:

• Source-verified records show a green badge with the citation, the official source link, and the verification date. These pages are indexable.
• Estimated records (figures we haven't yet confirmed against the official source) show an amber "not yet source-verified" badge. Those pages are set to noindex and are automatically excluded from our sitemap — so an unverified rate can never be presented to search engines as authoritative. The tool still works for you, but it tells you honestly that the figure is an estimate.

As of June 2026, 15 states are source-verified and 36 are still estimates being verified on a rolling basis. We currently cover 14 counties at the county level, with more added as we verify them.

How often we review

States adjust rates and fees, usually around their budget cycles. We re-review the dataset at least annually and monitor known changes in between. Any figure older than 18 months is automatically flagged as possibly outdated. Even so, rates can change between our review and your closing — which is why every page tells you to confirm the current amount with the county recorder or a licensed title professional before you close.

What we don't do

We don't rely on Wikipedia, unsourced blogs, or AI-generated numbers for any verified figure. We don't scrape or copy a competitor's data. And we don't claim a professional license we don't hold — TallyClose publishes estimates and general information, not advice for your specific transaction.