That's more of a startup oriented attitude. To continue the house analogy, if you wanted to avoid the premium associated with the higher contract, could enter into a similar agreement with the builder.
He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable deal?
There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny that way).
In the case of the original post, I would be willing to work there - as a very expensive contractor, with the degree of my loyalty explicit in the terms. He'd probably object to the part about him paying my attorney to review it, though.
It's not, or didn't use to be, all that unusual in houses. It's referred to as building "on spec", meaning "speculative"; where the architect, builder, or whoever builds the house on the chance that they can make a profit selling it after, rather than the more common way of building it to an up-front contract. It was most often used when a builder had materials or a little cash available to avoid laying off good workers when there wasn't a contract job available.
He builds the house on the cheap, in exchange for a percentage of the final selling price. If the contract was sound, why wouldn't that be an equitable deal?
There's probably a law against it, though (houses are funny that way).
In the case of the original post, I would be willing to work there - as a very expensive contractor, with the degree of my loyalty explicit in the terms. He'd probably object to the part about him paying my attorney to review it, though.