Residual Stock Finance in Australia: Why I’m Building 13x for Property Developers
Over the past decade, most of my work has sat somewhere between property, finance and investment. Through Wealthi, I’ve worked with residential developers and investors and through Flexdoc, I’ve spent more time on lending, understanding how banks and non-bank lenders assess property and credit.
The more I’ve worked across both sides, the more one problem has stood out: residual stock.
A developer can spend years getting a project through planning, construction and completion, settle most of the apartments and still have millions of dollars tied up in the final portion of unsold stock. The building is complete, construction risk is largely behind them, but the capital is still trapped.
The problem we are building 13x around.
Residual stock finance, sometimes called development exit finance or completed stock finance, allows developers to refinance debt secured against unsold completed apartments or townhouses. It can reduce holding costs, release equity and give the developer more time to sell.
But I don’t think developers simply need another lender.
Transitional capital to build more housing
The real question is broader: what is the best way to release capital from the completed project?
Sometimes the answer is refinancing. Sometimes the existing bank debt is already competitive and should be left alone. In that case, the better solution might be selling a small tranche of apartments, finding a block buyer, releasing equity or combining finance with a strategic stock sell-down.
That is why I see 13x as a residual stock platform rather than just a residual stock lender.
Our approach is to understand the entire residual position: remaining stock, debt, lender release prices, holding costs, expected sales velocity, buyer demand and the developer’s next capital requirement.
The part I find most interesting is the information created through that process.
Two completed developments can have the same valuation and the same loan-to-value ratio but very different risk. One might contain highly liquid apartments that can clear quickly. Another might contain stock that has already been marketed heavily and is difficult to move.
A valuation tells you what the property may be worth. It does not always tell you how quickly that value can be converted into cash.
That is where I think 13x can build a genuine advantage.
Every residual stock transaction teaches us more about what sells, what doesn’t, how different lenders price risk, which buyers emerge and how long stock actually takes to clear.
Over time, that knowledge should make us better at both credit and exit execution.
Building on existing knowledge
We are not starting from zero. Our team already has experience across residential property, mortgage finance, investor distribution and developer relationships. 13x brings that knowledge together around one narrow problem.
The ambition is simple: become exceptionally good at helping residential property developers release capital from completed projects.
Today that means residual stock finance, equity release and strategic stock sell-down.
Over time, I believe it can become much more.