Bank asking for 10% of offer as earnest deposit. Thoughts?

[Vince Impellizzeri]

Hey guys!

So I made an offer on a foreclosure which I intend to fix up, live in with my wife as our first home for 5-8 years, pay off entirely and then rent out. The listing was $96k, I offered $97k cash ( my parents are helping out with the cash part via their 401k ). The bank countered my offer asking to move the closing date to Oct. 25th (no problem there), but then also asked for $9700 as the earnest money deposit (currently my earnest money dep is $1000). What should I do? It seems that increasing the earnest money is pretty low risk and I wouldn't want to lose the house just to make a point, but am I risking NOT getting the house by only raising my deposit to say $3k? What are your thoughts?