What private lenders actually need to know (and why)

Every finance broker I speak with wants the same thing from a lender: a quick, clear answer. Yes, no, or here’s what we’d need. And every lender, including Bowery, wants the same thing from a broker: enough information up front to give those answers with confidence.

The foundations of any lending decision are generally well understood. A quality asset, a borrower with financial strength, a sensible LVR, and a viable exit are the starting point for assessing any opportunity. But once those boxes are ticked, the conversation becomes more nuanced. As we’ve explored in our articles on what makes a good counterparty and how private lenders assess opportunities differently to banks, context matters.

A pre-deal conversation helps us distinguish between a deal that’s merely acceptable and one we’re confident backing. Get it right and we save each other hours. Get it wrong? We’re both chasing our tails on a deal that was never going to fit, or worse, we watch a good deal unravel because something surfaced too late.

So, when we ask about your project, here’s what we’re really asking, and how you can help us get to a faster, cleaner answer.

Tell us about the hair on the deal.

Bowery funds many straightforward deals, but we also understand that not every application arrives wrapped up neatly. Our role is to back strong borrowers and sound projects where the fundamentals make sense — even when there are a few moving parts to work through.

If there’s anything in the background that could affect the structure, timing, or assessment of the deal, it helps to raise it early. That might be a complication in the borrower’s history, an issue with an existing facility, or something specific to the project itself.

The earlier we understand those factors, the faster we can assess whether there’s a workable path forward. What slows a deal down isn’t necessarily complexity — it’s discovering key information too late.

What we can’t do as easily is rebuild trust when something comes up halfway through. The deal might eventually get done, but the late surprise raises a fair question on our end that we need to work through: what else hasn’t been shared? Put it this way: some of the commonly cited advantages of private credit are speed, flexibility, and transparency. When transparency is compromised mid-deal, the speed advantage evaporates because the burden of proof increases: more verification, more back-and-forth, and more assurance is needed before we can proceed with confidence. Openness from day one is genuinely the fastest path to terms.

Help us see the why, not just the ask.

The number on the term sheet is rarely the whole story.

When you send us a deal, we want to understand where it sits in the borrower’s wider plan.

Why the leverage? Why a refinance now? If it’s an equity release or a cash-out that pushes the LVR higher than we’d otherwise expect, what’s the money actually for? Is it funding pre-development costs? Is the borrower getting ahead of a permit and starting to engage builders or prep the site? Is it tied to another development in their portfolio?

A proposal that frames the deal inside the borrower’s broader plan does a lot of work for us. It helps us see a developer being proactive rather than stretched, and it often turns a borderline structure into something we can support.

For construction deals: show your working.

Construction is where the most preventable surprises happen.

We aren’t just being cautious; data proves that construction volatility is actively shaping the market. The CBRE H2 2025 Lender Sentiment Survey highlights that elevated construction costs and the resulting development feasibility challenges are cited by property lenders as the single biggest challenge facing the lending environment.

Costs move, scopes change, and indicative terms based on a rough number rarely survive contact with reality. So, if you have a QS report—send it in. If you’re pre-QS, give us the best breakdown you have, and make sure every line is there: hard costs, contingencies, authority fees, public open space contributions, all of it. We understand volatility. What we’re looking for is evidence that the borrower has thought it through and isn’t going to discover a missing $400k of contributions three months in.

This is also where we lean on our team to stress-test the numbers, so the more detail you give us, the more useful our feedback will be.

Get the payout figure right.

Accurate payout figures from the outgoing lender matter more than they might seem to.

On a multi-million dollar development deal, a missing $40k in exit penalties can push an LVR past our mandate limits, forcing a full restructure. So, yes, a figure that’s even a little off can materially change the LVR, and with it, the terms we can potentially offer. If we quote on one number and settle on another, no one’s happy.

A quick call to the existing lender for an up-to-date payout, including any break costs or fees, before the deal lands with us, saves a lot of repositioning later.

Land tax, rates & the things that surface in final searches.

This is the one I’d most like brokers to get ahead of.

On larger land holdings especially, land tax can be significant, and any arrears have to be cleared at settlement. If the borrower has $100,000 of land tax owing and we don’t know this until the final searches, that’s either an extra equity contribution we needed to plan for, or a statutory charge from the State Revenue Office holding up settlement.

Neither is a good outcome. Settlement delays mean the borrower is potentially paying double interest, payout figures from the outgoing lender start moving, and a deal that was meant to close cleanly gets messy at the worst possible moment.

It’s the same story with council rates, water rates, and any other arrears that can attract a statutory charge. We know it can be a tricky conversation for a broker to raise with their client. But asking early, “is there any land tax owing? Any rates in arrears? Any caveats on title we should know about?”, is one of the highest-leverage questions you can ask. We’d much rather hear about it on day one and factor it into the deal than discover it the week of settlement.

What this all comes down to…

When we ask about your project, we’re really asking: what does this deal actually look like?

And we mean all of it. Not just the highlights. The finance brokers we work best with are the ones who treat that first conversation as a chance to give us the full picture, hair and all.

The reward for that openness is speed. A clean, honest brief lets us give you a real answer quickly, structure terms that will more likely hold through to settlement, and back your client with confidence.

Got a deal you’d like to talk through?

Send it over with as much of the above information as you have. And if there’s something on it you’re not sure how to position, call me. I’m always happy to talk it through.