I didn't find any lower than 10% for full contract or lower than 20% for owner-builder. I found full contract with an 80-10-10 loan. It avoided the PMI that would otherwise have been required (which lowered the monthly payment). The biggest problem was that the secondary loan was a shorter term (10 or 15 years) and a higher rate, or it was variable. With the variable rate and a 15 year term, the payment was low. The risk would depend on when the second loan was paid off.
With the owner builder loan I'm using now, they count "sweat equity" toward the 20%, so any work I plan to do is going toward the 20%. I don't know if it can exceed 10% of the loan.

Hi miscindy,
We will be closing on our construction loan this Friday (if the construction Gods are with us!!). We were going to do a 30 year fixed with 20% down but our appraisal came back 30K less than what we needed and we couldn't come up with more, so we are going to a 7/1 ARM, in hopes after construction we have another appraisal and refinance in the near future. We aren't paying 20% down but I think it is overall more than 10%. Not sure if that helps at all...Good Luck!

We are currently looking into an FHA construction loan. 3.5% down. We have one local bank in our area doing them, so it may be harder to find. These are not the renovation FHA loans that I seem to see so much more about, but a new construction perm loan like other construction/perms. They are subject to loan limits which I understand vary by county.

As of yesterday, my loan officer told me that construction/perm was a thing of the past. Investor's won't buy the loans now; you have to close twice.

If you are planning on a contruction/perm loan, you will probably be limited to small local banks and credit unions which keep their loans in house instead of selling them.

miscindy:
We just closed on July 31, 2009 (In Central Ohio) with a 3.5% Construction Loan through Huntington National Bank! At the beginning of the year, when we first started the process, they went from 5% and then a couple of weeks later, they decided to only go 10% down! So we contacted Wells Fargo and was told about the FHA 3.5% down. So we contacted our loan officer again at Huntington (because their fees were a little lower and plus we really liked the lady) and she went to her manager and voila, we got a Construction Loan with 3.5% down and 1 time close!!!

I know what you have been through! Frantically, back in January, we were pacing the floor wondering what we were going to do, because we didn't have $15,000 to 30,000 down and we had already sold our home!! So be patient, call around and compare the fees!! GOOD LUCK!!