1-2 Dwellings
Building to sell rather than to a signed buyer. Because there’s no presale underpinning the exit, lenders look hard at the location, your track record and the margin in the feasibility. Often the fastest facility to put in place if the numbers are clean.
3+ dwellings
Duplexes, townhouse rows and small unit sites. Once you’re past a handful of dwellings, most banks start asking about presales and debt cover, while non-bank lenders will often proceed without them at a higher cost. Choosing between those two paths is the real decision.
Land
Splitting a parcel and funding the civil works through to titled lots. Lending is assessed on the value of the lots on completion against the cost to get them there, with drawdowns tied to civil milestones rather than building stages.
Speed over cost
Site acquisition before your main facility is in place, settling to a deadline, or bridging a gap while stock sells. Private lenders move in days rather than weeks, priced accordingly. Useful when timing is the constraint — provided the exit is genuinely defined.
| Banks | Non-bank lenders | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | The cheapest money available | More — you're paying for speed and flexibility |
| Do you need buyers lined up first? | Often yes, once you're past a few dwellings | Usually no |
| How long until you're funded | Weeks, through a full credit assessment | Days to a couple of weeks |
| How much they'll lend | Less. They're more cautious | More, measured against what the project costs to build |
| Go with this when | You have time, buyers, and a track record behind you | The site won't wait, or presales aren't realistic for this stock |
What the finished project is expected to sell for, net of GST, supported by an independent valuation. Nearly every other number is expressed against it.
Debt commonly sized well below GRV
Land, construction, professional fees, council contributions, interest, and contingency. A quantity surveyor usually verifies the build cost before drawdowns begin.
Lenders fund a share of cost, not all of it
What’s left after every cost is met. Too thin and there’s no buffer for a variation or a soft market, and credit will decline it regardless of how good the site is.
A tight feasibility is the most common decline
Site, program, costings, exit and your track record. We’ll tell you quickly whether it’s fundable and roughly where.
We present it to the lenders whose appetite actually matches the project, and come back with indicative terms to compare side by side.
We manage the independent valuation and quantity surveyor reports through to formal approval and settlement.
We handle progress claims against the program, and set up the takeout, like sale or refinance to term debt before you need it.
Usually not out of pocket. On most development facilities the interest is capitalised — added to the loan and paid out of the project on exit — with an interest allowance built into the total cost from the start. It’s important that allowance is realistic, because an overrun eats it and then eats your margin.
Often yes, through a short-term or private facility, then refinanced into the construction facility once approvals are in place. This is common where a site has to be secured to a settlement date. The key question is the exit: a lender needs to see a credible path to either the development facility or a sale, not just an intention.
In our experience: a feasibility with no contingency, an exit that assumes an optimistic sale price, costings that predate the current build market, or a program that doesn’t allow for realistic delays. Most of these are fixable before an application goes anywhere which is why we’d rather look at the numbers early than submit and get a decline on file.
