MBC Homes: a $600,000 new home in Croydon, run on BuildFair

MBC Homes is building a new home on a rear lot in Croydon, in Melbourne's outer east, under a $600,000 fixed-price contract. The project was set up on BuildFair in June 2026 and has run on it from the first deposit.

The owner's money is held in their name at Cuscal, through our banking partner Kobble, not in the builder's operating account. The owner paid a $30,000 deposit, 5% of the contract and the most Victorian law allows on a contract of this size.

The contract runs on a 12-stage progress payment schedule: the deposit, ten progress stages of 8.5% each, and a 10% builder margin held until completion. MBC Homes set a fixed weekly overhead in its quote, drawn from the project account every week once the owner accepted, so business costs do not wait on the next stage.

Subcontractor and supplier invoices go in with photo evidence. Once approved, they are paid from the project account, and every deposit, approval and payment is recorded in BuildFair's double-entry ledger.

By 15 October 2026 the owner had funded the deposit and five progress stages, from preliminaries through frame: $285,000, or 47.5% of the contract, received into the project account. Over the same period, 22 invoices worth $277,066.80 from five businesses were approved through the project.

Every approved invoice and the builder's weekly overhead drew on money already sitting in the project account for this job, rather than on MBC Homes' own account while it waited for the next stage. That is the gap most builders fund themselves, and on this job it did not open.

Roof cladding is underway, with $26,000 of that stage already in the project account. We will update this case study as the build moves through lock-up, fixing and completion.