The Bank Pulled Our Loan After We Knocked the House Down
Dianne Kovacevic and her husband Dave spent years getting ready before they bought a single site. He refused a limited builder's licence and spent a year on slabs and foundations to earn the unlimited one. She completed a diploma in contract drafting and estimation. Only then did they go looking for land.
What followed was four townhouses in Heidelberg Heights and an education that came with invoices attached. Two and a half years fighting the council, including VCAT. A construction loan pulled after unconditional approval, because they were owner builders, a question they had asked in writing before they started. Development contributions of $58,000, a levy of roughly $20,000, and civil works that have run anywhere from $16,000 to $46,000 across their projects. Then COVID, a finished project they could not lease, and money borrowed from Dianne's parents to get it done.
They still made more than $1.3 million on it.
Dianne also talks about the design decision she has never repeated: double garages in the two middle units, which took space out of the living areas and showed up directly in the sale prices. The front unit set an area record at $1,065,000. The middle two sold for $850,000 and $895,000.
She became a mortgage broker after Dave got sick and the family lost its income, and her business now sits squarely in construction and renovation lending. If you have only ever taken out a home loan, this conversation is worth your time.
Dianne is at DK Capital Lending. You can reach her on di@dkcapitallending.com.au (mailto:di@dkcapitallending.com.au) or 0478 842 895.
Read the full write up on the BuildHer blog: buildhercollective.com.au/blog (https://buildhercollective.com.au/blog/)
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19 Aug 2026
Size, Materials, Labour: How Elise Weavers Keeps Her Third Reno on Budget
Elise Weavers is back for renovation number three: a single fronted Melbourne terrace on 370 square metres, nearly done and already home. In this episode, Elise and Rebeka unpack the three levers Elise pulls to control cost on every project: the size of the build, the materials she chooses, and the labour that puts it all together.
They dig into why every square metre you add costs you, how eight floor plans became one, and how tall raked ceilings and compression and release make a modest footprint feel generous. Elise shares why she clads with James Hardie Stria (fire rating, a slim profile on the boundary, and her builder partner Sam can install it himself), how she squeezed a dining table, bedside tables and a coffee table out of one slab of kitchen stone, and why a polytech kitchen was the smart trade off. Plus the labour decisions that save thousands: prefab trusses and wall frames, choosing methods that suit your team, and knowing whether your builder is a site manager or a builder carpenter.
If you are renovating in a rising cost market, this one is a masterclass in spending where it counts.
Connect with BuildHer Collective at https://buildhercollective.com.au or on Instagram @buildhercollective
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26 Jun 2026
Would You Do This Deal? Assessing a Live Site With My Boys
Most of us think a feasibility is a spreadsheet. It isn't. It's a decision-making tool, and the thinking behind the numbers is what tells you what to put in them.
In this solo episode Rebeka takes you behind the scenes as she helps her two boys, Liam and Ben, assess a live site for their first project: where the value is hidden, what to look for, and how to decide if a deal is a go, a no-go, a rework, or a find-out-more.
She gets into why a stuck, uncertain market can be one of the best times to buy, why both Claude and ChatGPT said no to this site and why you can't let a robot make the call, the difference between feeling risk and calculating it, and a real deal at deal level: the $800k buy, the $1.6m to $1.8m end, a $150k to $350k profit range, and the one tree that could decide the whole thing.
The question she comes back to every time: if this was your money, would you still do the deal?
Want the feasibility spreadsheet? Comment FEASO on Instagram or DM us feaso and we'll send it over.
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