What schedule do you pay your contractors on?

[PJ Kolnik]

Hi BP,

I'm working through some cosmetic repairs and painting on a unit with a solid team that can do a good mix of stuff. They were eager to get started and have been very honest hard workers up until this point and they are doing great work.

We got started fairly quickly and while we discussed price, we didn't talk about when and how much they would get paid throughout the project.

My question for BP'ers:

1) Do you reimburse for materials right away if they purchase materials? I don't want to string these guys out with a huge line of credit, but I also want to incentivize them to find better deals on materials and wait until the end of the project if there are exchanges and returns.

2) Do you pay a certain percentage up front (20,30,40%) and then pay the rest at the end of the job? I'm curious to know how people have worked out their milestone payments with their contracting team.