4. Contract and Financing

Because of the unique nature of a custom home, you will be expected to make a significant investment in the project during your contract period. In addition to the lot reservation and architectural deposits discussed in the previous step, you will be expected to make substantial deposits at signing of the contract, and when under roof. This generally carries you until full payment is due at closing. In general, most of our customers have a total of 20% invested in their home prior to closing.

We utilize a standard contract form provided to us by the Home Builders Association of St. Louis.  In a few areas, we have customized this standard contract form to clarify issues unique to our area of specialization, in-fill custom homes.  We do provide a copy of the standard contract form in advance and ask that you review it in detail.  You will find it to be an industry standard form but a thorough advance review of the contract will answer many of your questions and concerns.

If you have already chosen a home site from the Benchmark/Cachet inventory, you need not worry about construction financing.   We will take care of everything!  We will review all of the important points for you to know about how construction is financed and how we ensure that your investment in your new home is kept safe and protected.  Specifically, we will review how your contract deposits and all construction loan funds are directed through a disbursing company.  The disbursing company makes the payments we direct once they have established the authenticity of the bill and collected lien waivers from the subcontractors/suppliers.  These steps are taken to protect your investment and so that you can obtain title insurance when you close on the purchase of your new home at its completion.

If you have already purchased a home site or are negotiating on a potential home site, we can assist you in identifying lenders who specialize in this relatively unique market and work with you and your lender to see that the same investment protection mechanism are in place as described above.

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