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Victoria | Lydian platform, delivered in partnership with Clark Finance Group
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Eaglemont is small, leafy and unusual. Much of it sits within the Walter Burley Griffin designed estate, with curving streets and significant architecture, and a good deal of it is heritage protected. Properties are tightly held and the market is thin by any measure.
Eaglemont’s defining feature, from a lending point of view, is heritage. Large parts of the suburb carry overlays that restrict what can be altered, demolished or added. That does not make a property harder to buy, but it makes renovating a longer and more involved process, and construction finance has to be built around approvals that can take considerable time.
Values here are high and stock is scarce. A handful of properties trade in a typical year, which means buyers need to be genuinely ready rather than theoretically interested. It also means valuations can be less predictable, simply because there are fewer recent comparable sales for a valuer to work from.
Most purchases involve selling something else, and given how rarely the right home appears, buying first and selling after is close to universal.
Approvals take time and restrict scope. Construction lending needs to be structured around that reality, not against it.
Few comparable sales makes valuations less certain. We plan for that rather than assuming the number will land.
Only a handful trade each year. Being fully assessed in advance is the difference between buying and watching.
Whatever stage you are at, there is a path through it. Pick the one that sounds like you.
Usually yes, within limits, but you will need heritage approval alongside standard planning, and what you can change externally is often tightly constrained. From a finance point of view the key consequence is time. Construction loans are assessed on approved plans, so the funding cannot be finalised until approvals are through. Build that into your timeline.
Valuers rely on recent comparable sales, and in a suburb where very few properties trade there may not be many. Add architecturally significant homes that are hard to compare with anything else, and valuations can come back further from expectations than they would elsewhere. It is manageable, but worth anticipating rather than being surprised by.
Yes, and it is common here. The considerations are the same as anywhere, just with larger numbers: the lender looks at combined debt and expected sale proceeds. At higher values fewer lenders will write the bridging, so knowing which ones are comfortable at your figure matters more than it does lower down the market.
Longer than a standard suburban purchase. Larger loans often need specialist credit assessment, valuations on unusual properties can take extra time, and if there is any construction element the approvals add to it. Starting the conversation well before you are ready to buy is the single most useful thing you can do.
Book a free consultation and we will walk you through your options, what you can borrow, and what it will cost.
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Serving clients across Australia.
Authorised Representative no. 525 778
Specialist Financial Group Australian Credit Licence no. 387025
Lydian Financial Services Victoria
Suite 1/103 Grimshaw Street, Greensborough VIC 3088, Australia
Level 12, 15 Collins Street Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
Copyright © LYDIAN FINANCIAL SERVICES PTY LTD 2026. All Right Reserved.