Kribashini Hannon I Your Building Broker

This is one of the most common - and most expensive - assumptions in residential building.

You've spoken to the bank. You know what you can borrow. So you know what you can build, right?

Not exactly.

What the bank approves is based on your financial position - your income, your assets, your serviceability. It's a lending decision, not a building one.

What a build actually costs is based on something else entirely. Your scope, your site, your specification, your builder, your contract, your provisional sums, your variations, your client-supplied items, your landscaping, your finishes… your everything.

These two numbers - what you can borrow and what your build will actually cost - don't automatically match. And the gap between them is where projects get into trouble.

We see it regularly: clients who have finance approved and a design they love, who go to tender and discover the quotes are significantly higher than the budget they'd been working to. By that point, the design fees are spent. The decisions feel locked in. And changing course is expensive.

The building budget conversation needs to happen before the design conversation. Not after.

That means understanding not just what the bank will lend you, but what your project will realistically cost to deliver - scope, site conditions, builder type, procurement pathway and all.

Those are two very different numbers. And knowing the difference early is everything.

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