A standard home loan is built for someone who plans to stay put. A flip needs fast settlement, money released as the work happens, and a lender who values the property on what it will be worth once finished — not just what it’s worth today. That’s a different problem to solve, and it’s one Blue Guide Finance works through often.
Most home loans assume you’ll live in the property for years, so they’re priced and built around that. A flip is the opposite. You need to move fast on the purchase, fund the renovation as it happens, and get out — by selling or refinancing — within months, not decades.
Get the setup wrong, and the numbers that looked fine on a spreadsheet get eaten up. This can happen through holding costs, delayed settlements, or a lender who won’t release the next payment until you’ve already paid the tradesperson yourself. Getting it right mostly means matching the loan type to how your project actually works.
Flips are often lost or won on how quickly finance can settle — standard bank timelines can be too slow for a competitive purchase.
Lenders want to know how the loan gets repaid — sale, refinance, or hold — before they’ll structure the loan around it.
Which one fits depends on the property, the scope of work, and how quickly you need to move.
A short-term loan that lets you secure a purchase quickly, often before an existing property has sold or a longer-term loan is in place. Useful when speed matters more than the interest rate. This can be used if you have one property up for sale and your next opportunity has already come up, if you have enough equity and meet other requirements that vary between lenders.
Money is released in stages as the work is finished and checked, instead of all at once — matched to your build or renovation contract.
With an interest-only loan, you only pay the interest, not the loan itself, which keeps repayments low while you’re not earning rent. The loan is meant to be paid off when you sell or refinance.
For projects that don’t fit a mainstream bank’s rules — unusual properties, tight timelines, or borrowers who need a faster decision.
Nathan is a full-time mortgage broker who still picks up casual nursing shifts, and the same habits that matter at the bedside carry straight into how he structures a flip’s finance — checking figures twice, staying calm under a deadline, and never skipping a step just because things are busy. Combined with an existing network of property flippers and builders, Blue Guide Finance can help you work out realistic numbers before you commit to a purchase, not just after.
A few things worth understanding before you’re under contract.
Some lenders will look at what the property will be worth once finished, not just the purchase price. This can change how much deposit you actually need. It depends heavily on the lender and the scope of work, so it’s worth checking rather than assuming.
Almost always, yes. Interest, council rates, insurance and unexpected delays add up fast on a project with no rental income to offset them. We build a safety buffer into the numbers before recommending a loan structure.
For a short hold period, an interest-only loan usually keeps repayments manageable while the property isn’t earning income. It’s not automatic, though — it depends on your overall finances and the lender’s own rules.
Instead of paying interest each month, the lender works out the interest for your whole loan term upfront and deducts it from your loan before releasing the funds — useful when you don’t want monthly repayments eating into cash flow during a renovation with no rental income coming in. For example (illustrative only, not credit advice): on a $400,000 loan over 9 months at 10% interest, the lender might deduct around $30,000 in interest and fees upfront, so you’d actually receive about $370,000 — but you’d still repay the full $400,000 at the end, since that’s the amount secured against the property.
The key thing to plan for is that you won’t have the full loan amount to spend — budget off the net amount you’ll actually receive, not the headline loan size, or you can come up short partway through the project. Structures also vary by lender: some deduct interest upfront like this example, others add it to your loan balance progressively over the term. We’ll confirm exactly how yours is structured before you commit.
It’s worth planning your finance around a realistic timeline, with room for delays, rather than the best-case scenario. We talk through what happens if the project runs over, before you commit to a loan structure — not after.
Bring the property, the renovation scope, and your rough budget. We’ll talk through which finance structure actually fits, before you’re locked into a contract.