I'm not doing any renos where I don't reserve the last 30% of the price at delivery. You deliver late, you get paid late.

The big problem with residential construction is trust. Homeowners are paying big money for something they don't understand all the intricacies of. They're going to be suspicious. The contractor is going to be suspicious too, customers omit details and unforeseen circumstances come up.

It's aggravated that the relationship will probably be short-lived, most people do at most a few renovations in their lifetime.

If you can figure out how to create an atmosphere where everyone trusts everyone else then everything else will pretty much figure itself out.