The order matters. Site control first, then feasibility, then equity, then debt. Developers who try to source debt before they have a feasibility waterfall and a builder lined up get turned away by every credit committee that matters — not because they lack the deposit, but because they lack the answers to the questions credit will ask in the first ten minutes.
1. Site control
Under contract or owned, with the deposit funded. Until the site is locked, every other number is hypothetical and no lender will spend real time on it. A bridging facility can buy you the site before approval — but that is a deliberate financing decision, not a substitute for control.
2. Feasibility
A feasibility model that reconciles: hard costs, soft costs, contingency, sales costs and finance costs, all broken out, all from the same year, all internally consistent. This is the single document that decides whether a lender takes you seriously. A feasibility that doesn't reconcile is the most common reason a credible-looking deal dies at credit.
3. Equity
The lender will want to see your contribution — cash, equity in completed stock, or a site vended in at fair value — and they'll want to know when it goes in. Equity that arrives first signals commitment; equity that's promised "from the next settlement" is a risk the credit memo has to explain away.
4. Debt
Only now does it make sense to talk to lenders. With site, feasibility and equity in place, the conversation is about matching the deal to the lender whose appetite fits — and presenting it so the answer is yes. Approach in this order and the debt conversation is short. Approach out of order and it doesn't happen at all.
This is why the first call is worth twenty minutes. We work out which of these four you actually have, and which one is the gap — because the gap is usually the whole problem.