Development Cashflow Modelling for Australian Developers

A small townhouse project pencils up well. The feasibility shows about $7,000,000 of costs going out, roughly $8,100,000 of sales coming in, and a profit near $1,100,000. On a profit measure the deal is done. Then you lay the same numbers out month by month and a different problem appears. By the time the build tops out, the project has soaked up close to $6,600,000 of cash, the construction facility is fully drawn, and not a single sale settles for another four months. A delay to the occupation certificate, or one off-the-plan buyer walking from their contract, and there may not be enough cash on hand to pay the final progress claim. The profit never moved. What nearly sank the deal was timing: when cash left, and when it came back.

That gap between profit and cash is what a development cashflow model exists to show, and it is the part of a feasibility a single profit figure cannot capture. This guide is written for the developer trying to build that model and read it properly, not the passive investor skimming a returns summary. It covers what a development cashflow model actually is, why a profitable project can still run out of cash, how to lay out the model month by month, why the way you spread cost over time (the S-curve against a straight line) changes your peak debt and your interest bill, how to read the cumulative funding line that sizes your equity and your facility, the Australian timing levers that move real cash (Goods and Services Tax (GST), progress claims, transfer duty and land tax), a worked example end to end, how the eight states and territories change the picture, and the mistakes that quietly break a model. Every benchmark is hedged, because costs, rates and timeframes shift with the cycle and with the specific project.

What a development cashflow model actually is

A development cashflow model is a dated record of every dollar the project pays out and every dollar it takes in, laid out across the life of the deal, usually month by month. It is not the same thing as the feasibility summary that sits at the front of most appraisals. The summary tells you the total cost, the total revenue and the profit. The cashflow tells you when each of those amounts actually moves, and that timing is where a development is won or lost.

Put plainly, the summary answers “does this deal make money,” and the cashflow answers “can I fund it through to the day it does.” Both questions matter, and a developer who can answer the first but not the second is exposed. Discounted cash flow and the simpler margin on cost are the two approaches developers most commonly use, and the cashflow is the engine underneath both. Profit metrics, the Internal Rate of Return (IRR), the Net Present Value (NPV) and the margin on cost all read off a dated cashflow. Build the cashflow badly and every metric downstream of it inherits the error.

The structure is simple to picture. Time runs across the top in periods, almost always months for a development, because the cash swings are too large and too lumpy for annual buckets to be useful. Down the side sit the line items: the things you pay for, and the things that pay you. Each amount is placed in the month it is expected to move. Add the column up and you get the net cash for that month. Carry the running total forward and you get the cumulative position, which is the single most important row in the whole model, because it tells you how much cash the project has consumed at any point in its life and therefore how much funding it needs.

That cumulative position is the reason the exercise is worth doing. A feasibility that only reports a profit at the end hides the depth of the hole the project digs before it climbs out. The cashflow shows the hole, how deep it gets, and when. For a developer deciding how much equity to commit and how large a facility to arrange, that depth is the number that matters.

Profit is not cash, and why that nearly sinks projects

The hardest idea for a newer developer to internalise is that a project can be genuinely profitable and still fail because it ran out of cash partway through. The two are different measures of different things. Profit is what is left at the end once all revenue is counted against all cost. Cash is what is in the account on a given day. A development spends nearly all of its cash long before it earns any, and the months in between, when the money has gone out but none has come back, are where the risk lives. It is the time value of money made concrete: the cash committed today is certain, while the profit meant to repay it sits months in the future and depends on the market still being there when the stock is finished.

Consider the shape of a typical build-to-sell project. Money goes out early and steadily: the land settles, transfer duty falls due, consultants are paid through design and approval, then construction draws down over a year or more, and holding costs and interest accrue the whole time. Money comes in late and in a rush: off-the-plan deposits are usually held in trust and are not available to fund the build, so the real inflow does not arrive until completed stock settles, often months after the last dollar of cost has been spent. The result is a long, deep trough of negative cash that only reverses at the very end. The profit is real, but it sits on the far side of a funding requirement that can be five or six times its size.

This is why a profitable project runs out of cash. The recurring triggers are familiar to anyone who has delivered a development. A construction delay pushes settlements back while interest keeps accruing on a fully drawn facility. A softening market slows the sell-down, so stock that was meant to settle in three months takes nine. An off-the-plan buyer defaults and their lot has to be remarketed. A variation or a latent site condition lifts the construction cost above the contingency. Any of these can turn a manageable funding requirement into a shortfall at exactly the point in the cycle where the project is most exposed, with the facility drawn and no income yet flowing. Carrying enough funding to bridge the whole gap, from the first spend through to the final settlement, is one of the central problems development finance exists to solve. The deal is still profitable. It just cannot reach the profit.

A development cashflow model is the only tool that exposes this before it happens. It shows the depth and timing of the trough, lets you test what a three-month settlement delay does to the funding requirement, and tells you whether the equity and the facility are sized to survive a realistic downside. The profit figure cannot do any of that, which is why experienced developers treat the cashflow, not the profit line, as the real feasibility.

The spine of the model: time across, line items down

Building the model starts with the structure. Lay months across the top, from the first dollar of expenditure (often the land deposit or the first consultant engagement) to the last dollar of income (the final settlement). For most projects this runs somewhere between eighteen months and three years. Down the side, group the line items into outflows and inflows.

On the outflow side, the major groups are usually:

• Land and acquisition. The land price itself, plus transfer duty (stamp duty), legal fees, and due diligence costs. This is a large lump near the start, and because it falls early it is funded almost entirely before any income exists.
• Professional and design fees. Architects, engineers, planners, surveyors, the Quantity Surveyor (QS), and other consultants, spread across the design and approval period.
• Statutory and approval costs. Application fees, developer contributions and infrastructure charges, and the costs of conditions of consent, which can fall at several points.
• Construction. Usually the single largest cost, drawn down over the build period in line with progress, and the line item where the spread assumption matters most.
• Contingency. A reserve for the unexpected, drawn as needed rather than on a fixed date.
• Holding costs. Council rates, land tax, insurance and the like, accruing across the whole hold.
• Finance costs. Establishment fees, line fees and interest, which depend on how much debt is drawn and for how long, and so are an output of the rest of the cashflow as much as an input.
• Selling costs. Agent commission, marketing and legal fees on sale, falling around settlement.

On the inflow side the list is shorter but the timing is everything:

• Deposits. Off-the-plan deposits, usually ten per cent, are typically held in trust and released only at settlement, so in most cases they are not available to fund construction. Modelling them as an early inflow is a common and dangerous error.
• Settlement proceeds. The bulk of the money, arriving as completed lots settle, net of any selling costs and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) treatment that applies.
• Rental income. Only on a build-to-hold, where income trickles in over years rather than arriving as a lump on sale.

Each amount goes in the month it is expected to move, not the month it is incurred or invoiced. That distinction matters more than it sounds. A progress claim certified in one month may not be paid until the next; transfer duty is payable within a set window after settlement, not on the contract date; a Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit on construction is recovered when the Business Activity Statement (BAS) is lodged, not when the builder is paid. Modelling cost on the date cash actually moves, rather than the date the obligation arises, is what separates a cashflow that holds up from one that quietly misleads. The point of the model is timing, so the timing has to be right.

Spreading cost over time: the S-curve against a straight line

Of all the line items, construction is the one where the spread assumption does the most damage if you get it wrong, and it is the part most generic templates handle badly by defaulting to a straight line.

A straight-line spread divides the construction cost evenly across the build. A $3,000,000 build over twelve months becomes $250,000 a month, every month. It is simple, and it is wrong, because construction does not spend evenly. Early months are slow while the site is set up, foundations go in and the trades ramp. The middle months are the heavy spend, when the structure, services and fit-out run at full pace. The late months taper as the job winds down to completion and defects. Plot the cumulative spend and it traces an “S” lying on its side: flat at the start, steep through the middle, flat again at the end. Adventures in CRE, which built one of the most widely used S-curve forecasting models, describes the same pattern: less spend per period early while the job ramps up, more through the middle when construction is humming, and less again as it winds down, so that the cumulative curve takes the familiar S shape and the per-period spend follows a bell.

The difference is not cosmetic. Take the same $3,000,000 build over twelve months and compare an even spread with a representative S-curve.

Both spreads reach the same $3,000,000 total. What differs is when the cash is drawn, and that changes the interest bill and the shape of the funding requirement. Look at the first third of the build. By the end of month four the straight line assumes $1,000,000 has been drawn; the S-curve assumes only $750,000. That $250,000 difference sits on the facility, accruing interest, for the rest of the project under the straight-line assumption but not under the S-curve. Across a build, modelling construction as a straight line when the real spend follows an S-curve tends to overstate the early drawn balance, and so overstates interest, on a project this size often by a meaningful five-figure sum. Get it the other way around, modelling an aggressive S-curve when the builder is in fact front-loaded, and you understate the early funding need and risk a drawdown the facility headroom does not cover.

The practical discipline is to spread construction the way it will actually be built, ideally off the builder’s own drawdown schedule or the Quantity Surveyor (QS) programme, rather than defaulting to an even split because it is easier to type. Where the real profile is unknown, an S-curve is generally a closer approximation of construction reality than a straight line, but the honest move is to test it. The spread assumption is exactly the kind of input worth flexing in a sensitivity analysis, because it moves the interest cost and the peak funding without changing a single headline number in the feasibility.

Reading the funding line: cumulative cash and peak debt

Once the line items are dated and spread, the model produces three rows worth reading, and developers who only look at the first one miss the point.

The first row is the period net cashflow: cash in minus cash out for each month. It is useful for spotting the heavy months, but on its own it does not tell you much, because a single negative month is normal and expected.

The second row is the cumulative cashflow, the running total carried forward. This is the funding line, and it is the row that matters most. It starts at zero, goes steadily negative as the project spends, reaches its lowest point somewhere near completion, then climbs back toward and past zero as settlements land. The lowest point of that line, the deepest the project ever goes into negative cash, is the peak funding requirement, more commonly called peak debt. It is the maximum amount of money the project needs to have available at one time, and it sets how much equity plus debt the deal requires. Size the funding to the average monthly spend, or to the total cost spread evenly, and you will be short at the trough. Size it to the peak, with headroom, and the project can breathe.

The third row, where the model includes it, is the debt balance itself, which moves as equity is spent first (or alongside debt), the facility draws down against construction, interest capitalises onto the balance, and settlements pay it back down. The relationship between peak debt and total cost feeds straight into the metrics a lender cares about, the Loan to Cost Ratio (LTC) and the Loan to Value Ratio (LVR), and into how the facility is sized and priced. The mechanics of arranging and drawing that facility sit in the construction finance guide; the cashflow is what tells you how big the facility needs to be and when it peaks.

Peak debt deserves its own attention because it is the number that gets projects into trouble. It is not the total cost, and it is not the profit. It is the worst-case cash position partway through, and it is highly sensitive to timing. Anything that delays income (a slow approval, a stretched build, a soft sell-down) pushes the trough deeper and later, lifting peak debt. Anything that pulls income forward (genuine pre-sales that settle quickly, staged completions that let early stock settle while later stock finishes) lifts the project out of the hole sooner and reduces the peak. Two projects with identical end profit can carry very different peak funding requirements purely because of how their cash is timed, and the one with the deeper, later trough is the riskier deal even though the profit line looks the same.

Interest: the cost the cashflow creates

Interest is the line item that makes a development cashflow recursive, and it trips up developers who treat it as a fixed input. You cannot know the interest bill until you know the drawn debt balance in each month, and you cannot know the drawn balance until you have spread every other cost and timed every inflow. Interest is an output of the cashflow, not an assumption you drop in at the start.

On most developments, interest is capitalised rather than serviced, meaning it is added to the loan balance each month instead of being paid in cash, because the project has no income to service it from until settlements begin. That makes the funding line compound: interest accrues on the drawn balance, capitalises onto it, and then accrues on the larger balance the following month. The deeper and longer the debt sits drawn, the more interest stacks up, which is precisely why the cost-spread assumption and the settlement timing matter so much. They drive the drawn balance, and the drawn balance drives the interest.

The base cost of that debt moves with the cycle. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cash rate sits underneath most facility pricing, and the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) left it at 4.35 per cent at its June 2026 meeting, with development margins stacked on top. A developer modelling interest should build the rate from the facility’s actual pricing, not a rule of thumb, and should remember that an interest reserve drawn from the facility is itself part of peak debt. The distinction between capitalised and serviced interest, and how each lands in the cashflow, is its own topic; what matters for the model is that interest is calculated on the real monthly balance, because an interest figure typed in as a flat percentage of total cost will almost always be wrong.

Where the cash actually moves in Australia

This is where most overseas modelling guides stop being useful for an Australian developer, because the timing levers that move real cash on a local project are set by Australian tax and construction law. Four of them deserve a place in every Australian development cashflow.

Goods and Services Tax (GST) on cost and on sales

Goods and Services Tax (GST) runs through a development cashflow in both directions, and the timing of each side is often modelled wrongly. On the cost side, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) charged on construction and consultant invoices is generally recoverable as a Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit, but not on the day you pay the builder. It is recovered when you lodge the relevant Business Activity Statement (BAS), which for most developers is monthly or quarterly, so there is a lag between paying the Goods and Services Tax (GST) out and getting it back. Whether that lag is short or long depends on your accounting basis. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) explains that a business can account for Goods and Services Tax (GST) on a cash or a non-cash (accruals) basis, with the cash option generally available below a $10,000,000 turnover threshold, and the choice changes the period in which credits and liabilities fall. Across a multi-million-dollar build, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) credit cashflow is large enough that the timing of recovery genuinely affects the funding requirement.

On the sales side, the timing is sharper still. New residential premises are generally a taxable supply under the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) rules for Goods and Services Tax (GST) on residential property, which is the developer’s usual position on completed stock. Since 1 July 2018, for new residential premises and potential residential land, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) requires the purchaser to withhold the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at settlement and pay it directly to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), rather than the developer receiving the full price and remitting later. The withheld amount is usually one-eleventh of the price, or seven per cent of the contract price where the margin scheme applies. For the developer’s cashflow this means the Goods and Services Tax (GST) component of each sale never lands in the account; it is netted out at settlement. Modelling sales at their full Goods and Services Tax (GST)-inclusive value as a cash inflow overstates the money that actually arrives. Where the margin scheme is used, which can reduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) payable on the sale, the calculation flows through to the net proceeds the cashflow should show; the mechanics are set out in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) margin scheme guide. The cleanest approach is to model the cashflow net of Goods and Services Tax (GST) throughout, so that what the model shows is the cash the project keeps.

Construction progress claims and the Security of Payment Acts

Construction cash does not leave on a schedule the developer sets unilaterally. It leaves in response to progress claims, and the timing of those claims is governed in every state and territory by security of payment legislation that gives the builder a statutory right to be paid within set timeframes. This is an Australian cashflow lever with real teeth, and it is invisible in overseas models.

In New South Wales (NSW), the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 gives contractors a right to progress payments, and the New South Wales (NSW) Government sets out how a payment claim is made and responded to, noting that a head contractor’s progress claim on the principal generally falls due within fifteen business days, with subcontractor claims on a different timetable. In Victoria (VIC), the equivalent regime is administered with reference to the Victorian Building Authority’s security of payment framework, under which a payment schedule must generally be provided within ten business days of a claim. In Queensland (QLD), progress payments run under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017, which sets out claim and response timeframes and the adjudication process behind them. The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) operates its own security of payments scheme, and South Australia (SA), Western Australia (WA), Tasmania (TAS) and the Northern Territory (NT) each have their own security of payment legislation with differing timeframes, including Western Australia’s more recent Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2021.

For the cashflow, the practical implication is that construction outflows fall due on a statutory rhythm, and a developer cannot simply defer a certified progress claim to suit the funding line. The model should place each drawdown in the month it actually falls due under the contract and the relevant Act, with the lender’s drawdown approval (usually following the financier’s Quantity Surveyor (QS) sign-off) sitting just behind it. Building the construction outflow on those real dates, rather than an idealised schedule, keeps the funding line honest.

Land settlement, transfer duty and holding costs

Two further Australian-specific items shape the early and middle of the cashflow. The first is transfer duty (stamp duty) on the land, levied by each state and territory at its own rates and thresholds, payable within a set window after settlement. Because it is large and falls early, it lands almost entirely on equity before any income exists, and it sits near the bottom of the funding trough for the whole project. The second is the run of holding costs carried from acquisition to completion, principally council rates, insurance and land tax, the last of which is assessed under each jurisdiction’s own land tax regime, such as Revenue NSW’s land tax. A longer hold in a higher land tax jurisdiction stacks more of these costs against the funding line, and because they accrue while the project is producing nothing, they deepen the trough rather than fill it.

A worked example, end to end

Take a small project and run a simplified cashflow to see how the funding line behaves and where peak debt sits. All figures are indicative and modelled net of Goods and Services Tax (GST), and the timeline is compressed to quarters so the arithmetic is easy to follow; a live model would run monthly and date every line.

Assume a duplex-to-townhouse project with the following indicative totals: land and acquisition (including transfer duty) of $2,150,000; design, consultants and approvals of $300,000; construction of $3,000,000; contingency of $150,000; holding costs (rates, land tax, insurance) of $100,000; selling costs of $250,000; and capitalised interest and finance fees of around $350,000. That is a Total Development Cost (TDC) near $6,300,000 in cash terms, including the selling costs, against sales proceeds of about $7,150,000 net of Goods and Services Tax (GST), for a profit on the order of $850,000 and a margin on cost near thirteen per cent.

Now watch the cash, quarter by quarter, as a cumulative funding requirement (the running total of cash consumed):

The profit is real: the project ends about $850,000 in the black. But look at what it takes to get there. For five quarters the project consumes cash, reaching a peak funding requirement near $6,300,000 around Q5, just before any sale settles. That trough, not the profit, is the number the equity and the facility have to cover. The profit only appears as cash in the final quarter, once settlements have paid the facility down and returned the equity.

The example also shows why timing risk is the real risk. Suppose the sell-down slows and the Q6 and Q7 settlements each slip a quarter. The profit barely changes, but the project now sits near its $6,300,000 peak for two extra quarters, with interest still capitalising on a fully drawn facility the whole time. The funding requirement deepens, the interest bill grows, and a facility sized exactly to the base-case peak is now short. Nothing about the project’s profitability changed. The timing did, and on a development the timing is what bites. Running the cashflow with the settlement dates pushed back is exactly the kind of downside a developer should model before committing, not after the stock fails to sell.

How the eight states and territories change the cashflow

The mechanics of a cashflow model do not change across the country. A cumulative funding line is read the same way in Perth as in Parramatta. What changes, and changes a great deal, is the cashflow that gets modelled, because several of the things that set a development’s timeline and its costs are decided at the state or territory level. Two projects with identical end profit can carry different peak funding requirements purely because of where they sit.

The largest lever is the planning approval timeline, because nothing deepens the funding trough like time spent holding land that is not yet producing income. The longer approval takes, the longer holding costs and interest accrue before construction can even start, and the later the income arrives.

• In New South Wales (NSW), most projects run through a Development Application (DA) to the local council or a regional panel, and recent reforms aimed at speeding up housing approvals can pull the construction start, and therefore the income, forward, lifting the project out of the trough sooner.
• In Victoria (VIC), the equivalent is a planning permit through the responsible authority, with the state’s development facilitation pathways able to shorten timelines for eligible projects.
• In Queensland (QLD), development assessment runs under the state’s planning framework, with code-assessable pathways generally faster than impact-assessable ones.
• In South Australia (SA), Western Australia (WA), Tasmania (TAS), the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and the Northern Territory (NT), the assessment regimes differ again in name and timeframe, but the principle is identical: a slower approval means a longer hold, more accrued cost before income, and a deeper funding requirement.

Beyond approvals, several state-set costs change the shape and depth of the trough:

• Transfer duty (stamp duty) on the land, levied by each state and territory at its own rates and thresholds, is a large early outflow that sits at the bottom of the trough for the life of the project. Modelling it at the correct jurisdiction’s rate matters, because the difference between states on a multi-million-dollar site can run to six figures.
• Land tax carried from acquisition to completion is a holding cost assessed under each jurisdiction’s own regime, and a longer hold in a higher land tax state stacks more cost against the funding line.
• Developer contributions and infrastructure charges vary by council and state and can be a substantial outflow, with the timing of when they fall due affecting the funding line as much as the amount.
• Security of payment timeframes for construction progress claims differ by jurisdiction, as covered above, changing the precise rhythm of the largest outflow in the model.

The practical implication is that benchmarking a peak funding requirement against a national rule of thumb, without adjusting for the jurisdiction, can mislead. A project in a state with fast approvals and lower holding costs will show a shallower, shorter funding trough than an identical project in a slower, higher-cost jurisdiction, on the same end profit. Modelling the real timeline and the real state costs is what makes the funding line meaningful.

This is the kind of work a purpose-built feasibility platform is designed to carry. With Feasly you schedule the project on an elegant Gantt, laying out your costs and revenue across the programme rather than as a flat line, and it turns that schedule into clean, month-by-month cashflow reports, so the drawn balance and the peak funding requirement fall out of the model and the funding line reflects when cash actually moves rather than an even spread.

Common mistakes that break a development cashflow model

A model can be built carefully and still mislead, usually through a handful of recurring errors. The ones worth checking for:

• Spreading construction as a straight line. Even distribution overstates the early drawn balance and the interest against a real S-curve, or understates the funding need if the builder is front-loaded. Spread it the way it will be built.
• Treating off-the-plan deposits as available cash. Deposits held in trust cannot fund the build. Modelling them as an early inflow flatters the funding line and hides the true peak.
• Modelling sales at the Goods and Services Tax (GST)-inclusive price. With the purchaser withholding the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at settlement, the developer never receives that component. Model the cashflow net of Goods and Services Tax (GST) so it shows the cash the project keeps.
• Typing interest in as a flat percentage of cost. Interest depends on the drawn balance month by month. Calculate it on the real balance, with capitalisation, or it will be wrong.
• Dating costs when incurred rather than when paid. Progress claims, transfer duty, and Goods and Services Tax (GST) credits all move on dates that differ from the date the obligation arises. The model is about cash, so date the cash.
• Sizing funding to the average, not the peak. The project has to be funded through its deepest point, not its average position. Size equity and debt to the peak funding requirement, with headroom for a delay.
• Running only a base case. A single set of timing assumptions hides the fragility. Push the settlement dates back and watch the peak deepen before committing the equity.

Frequently asked questions

What is a development cashflow model? It is a dated record of every dollar a development pays out and takes in, laid out month by month across the life of the project. Unlike the feasibility summary, which reports total cost, revenue and profit, the cashflow shows when each amount moves, which is what determines how much funding the project needs and when.

Why can a profitable development run out of cash? Because a development spends nearly all of its cash long before it earns any. Costs go out early and steadily while income arrives late and in a rush at settlement, so the project sits in a deep negative cash position for months. A delay to settlements, a slow sell-down or a cost overrun at that point can create a shortfall even though the project is profitable overall.

What is peak debt or peak funding? It is the deepest point of the cumulative cashflow, the maximum amount of cash the project needs to have available at one time, usually around construction completion before sales settle. It sets how much equity plus debt the deal requires, and it is far larger than the profit.

Should construction be spread on an S-curve or a straight line? Construction usually spends slowly at the start, heavily through the middle and slowly again at the end, which traces an S-curve when plotted cumulatively. A straight line is simpler but tends to misstate the drawn balance and the interest. Spreading construction off the builder’s drawdown schedule or an S-curve is generally closer to reality, and the assumption is worth testing because it moves the interest cost and the peak funding.

How does the Goods and Services Tax (GST) affect a development cashflow? The Goods and Services Tax (GST) on construction is recovered through the Business Activity Statement (BAS), so there is a lag between paying it and reclaiming it. On sales of new residential premises, the purchaser withholds the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at settlement and pays it directly to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), so the developer never receives that component. Modelling the cashflow net of Goods and Services Tax (GST) avoids overstating the cash that arrives.

A note for developers working across the Tasman

The cashflow method travels to New Zealand unchanged: the same dated layout, the same S-curve on construction, the same cumulative funding line and peak debt. What differs are the inputs that drive the timing. New Zealand has no transfer duty (stamp duty) on land, which removes a large early outflow an equivalent Australian project carries, so the funding trough tends to start shallower. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) runs differently, with no margin scheme equivalent and its own rules on property, so the netting of sales proceeds into the cashflow works on a different basis. The planning timeline, which drives how long the project holds land before it can build, runs through the resource consent system rather than an Australian Development Application (DA). The shape of the curve is the same; the parts that build it come from a different system, and a developer modelling on both sides of the Tasman should swap the inputs rather than assume the Australian settings carry over.

The bottom line

A development cashflow model is the part of a feasibility that tells you whether you can actually fund the deal, as opposed to whether it makes money on paper. It lays every dollar out on the date it moves, spreads construction the way it will really be built rather than as a tidy straight line, and produces the one row that matters most: the cumulative funding line, whose deepest point is the peak funding the project must carry. That peak, not the profit, is what sizes the equity and the facility, and it is acutely sensitive to timing, which is why a profitable project can still run out of cash when settlements slip or the sell-down stalls. Build the cashflow month by month, model the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the progress-claim timing the Australian way, calculate interest on the real drawn balance, size the funding to the peak with headroom, and stress the settlement dates before you commit. Do that, and the cashflow becomes what it should be: the clearest read you have on whether a deal that looks profitable can survive the months between spending the money and earning it back.