Looking for a little advice from the experts 
I am about ready to sign a contract with a General Contractor to build a new residential home for me. I have been happy with the custom home builder that we selected and have worked with during the design/costing process. This builder's standard contract requires a 10% down payment at contract signing. This amount is eight times more than the $5,000 that several other builders that I talked to require as a downpayment. My quandry is:
1) I told this builder months ago that I had a problem with this clause in his contract due to the fact that we would be selling our existing home and having to put 10% with the bank for a construction loan in addition to how this upfront money compared to other builders. At the time he told me not a problem he could be flexible on that, it was his standard clause
2) When I received his final contract for review this 10% downpayment clause was still in there. He asked that I call the bank that I was planning on dealing with and see if they would all an upfront disbursement to him to start work. He stated he has worked with other banks that allow this. I called my bank and they said absolutely not - they only pay for work completed and that in fact any amount of money that I did manage to give as a downpayment would be counted against the first draw that would be required.
3) Right now I am at a crossroads - are both the bank and the builder simply posturing and I need to get one of them to be bend on their "policies" or do I need to find either a new bank or a new builder?
Finally, what do you think about this builder's stance - much of what I have read is that if a new home builder is asking for alot of upfront money it could be cause for concern about their financial stability.
I am about ready to sign a contract with a General Contractor to build a new residential home for me. I have been happy with the custom home builder that we selected and have worked with during the design/costing process. This builder's standard contract requires a 10% down payment at contract signing. This amount is eight times more than the $5,000 that several other builders that I talked to require as a downpayment. My quandry is:
1) I told this builder months ago that I had a problem with this clause in his contract due to the fact that we would be selling our existing home and having to put 10% with the bank for a construction loan in addition to how this upfront money compared to other builders. At the time he told me not a problem he could be flexible on that, it was his standard clause
2) When I received his final contract for review this 10% downpayment clause was still in there. He asked that I call the bank that I was planning on dealing with and see if they would all an upfront disbursement to him to start work. He stated he has worked with other banks that allow this. I called my bank and they said absolutely not - they only pay for work completed and that in fact any amount of money that I did manage to give as a downpayment would be counted against the first draw that would be required.
3) Right now I am at a crossroads - are both the bank and the builder simply posturing and I need to get one of them to be bend on their "policies" or do I need to find either a new bank or a new builder?
Finally, what do you think about this builder's stance - much of what I have read is that if a new home builder is asking for alot of upfront money it could be cause for concern about their financial stability.
