What is an average insurance rate for a house?

Unfortunately, there is no science behind figuring insurance costs. Your $70K house can cost you $500 a year to insure and your exact same house in a different neighborhood 100 miles away can cost someone else $1000 per year. There are quite a few factors that go into determining premium most of which are beyond your control. Your city, fire dept response codes, distance from a fire hydrant, type of construction on your home (brick or frame), sq ft of home and your credit. You can qualify for discounts with most home insurance carriers so make sure to ask for multi-policy discount. Basically having your auto and home with the same company, dead bolt locks, security system, fire ext in home, sprinkler systems. There might be some companies that will consider you high risk and not write your policy if you have a certain breed of dog (pit bull, German Shepherd), if you have an unfenced pool or trampoline, if there is existing damage on your home. You also have to be careful for "extra" coverages that are available and they might offer, but are not needed in your specific situation. You really need to take the time and shop around apples to apples. Have 1 companies quote in hand and make sure all other companies quote you EXACTLY as that one. You might not always get an exact quote, but they be able to get really close to it.

There isn't one average rate. It varies wildly, especially if you're in a high risk place like Florida or California coastal. If $70,000 is the PURCHASE price of the house, well, that doesn't help at all. Houses get insured for the cost to rebuild. The insurance companies lump your house together with common characteristis of other houses to determine your rates. Some of the rating factors include: your credit score, fire protection (how far from a hydrant? what type of fire department?), prior claims, age of house, construction of house, how old the wiring, plumbing, furnace and roof are, where the house is located. You're going to have to call a local agent with a specific house in mind to get a ballpark quote. Something to keep in mind . . . most claims happen on houses that are insured for under $100,000. So if you insure a house to the replacement value and it's over $100,000, frequently you pay LESS than insuring it for, say, $70,000. And many, many insurance companies don't want to write a policy for a house under $80,000 anyway. Those that do, give you "standard" rates - the higher the value the house is insured for, the lower the rates go. Anyway. Expect to pay somewhere between $300 and $3,000, depending on the factors above. See? Too much varience to really plan it out.