Most Melbourne buyers spend their research time on the listing. Price guide, suburb median, days on market, the gallery. All of it is useful, and none of it tells you whether the next move is a good idea for the position you are actually in.

The gap between a property you like and a property you can comfortably hold is where most of the thinking belongs. Here is what we look at, in order.

Comparable sales over suburb medians

A suburb median is the midpoint of recorded sale prices, from a renovated Victorian to a tired 1970s unit. It is a useful trend indicator and a poor guide to the value of an individual property.

Comparable sales do a better job. Look for the same era of build, the same land size, the same level of renovation, and a sale in the last three months. Four or five genuine comparables are worth more than any suburb report. Where the swing matters most is in the difference between the advertised range and what property has actually been achieving on the street. In a shifting market that gap widens quietly, and it widens faster in areas with a lot of similar stock.

One thing worth knowing before you shortlist: how a lender will value the property is not the same as how a buyer will. Lenders work from settled evidence. If your comparables are sales under offer, or a listing price, the valuation may land somewhere else entirely.

Capacity before budget

Budget is what you would like to spend. Capacity is what a lender will support. They are rarely the same number, and working from the wrong one wastes time.

Capacity comes out of serviceability: income, commitments, living expenses and the new loan. Two details trip people up more than any other. Interest income may be treated differently across lenders, so a healthy term deposit or a high-yield savings account will not necessarily support borrowing capacity in the way you expect. And salary-packaged income needs careful assessment, as lenders differ in how they recognise taxable income, allowances and eligible tax-free benefits.

Then there is the holding cost, which is where a comfortable purchase can become an uncomfortable one. Loan repayments, council rates, insurance, body corporate if it applies, and the gap between rental income and outgoings. If the plan involves renting the property out for a period, that gap is the number to stress test, not the headline rent.

Selling and buying at once

This is the part of the process that catches people out, and it is usually a timing problem rather than a funding one.

There are two main routes. Sell first and rent in between, which reduces the uncertainty around sale proceeds but adds rental costs and another move, sometimes two. Or buy before you sell and bridge the gap, which keeps you in one property and introduces a different set of requirements.

Where a bridging facility is involved, a lender will want the full picture rather than a summary. That means the purchase price, the expected sale price, the balance on the existing mortgage, the costs of selling, the cash contribution, and the timeframe. Most of the variables come down to time, which is why an over-optimistic settlement estimate is the most common reason these arrangements run into trouble.

Pre-approval is worth having, but worth understanding too. It is an assessment of you, not a guarantee on a specific property. It generally does not lock in an interest rate, remains subject to conditions and property approval, and may need reassessment if your circumstances change.

Structure decided before the search

Who holds the property matters as much as what you pay for it. Buying in your own name, in a trust, or through a company produces different outcomes for land tax, for future borrowing, and for how easily you can restructure later.

If there is a trust or a company in the picture already, the conversation should happen before the search, not after an offer is accepted. Lenders assess these structures differently, and a structure acceptable to one lender may not meet another's policy. Ownership decisions are worth considering with your accountant and legal adviser before you commit.

One last thing worth saying plainly. Each lender assesses a position differently, so the figures move depending on who is looking at them. That is the part worth working through properly with us before you commit, rather than after.

Short version: comparable sales over suburb medians. Capacity over budget. Timeframes over optimism. Structure over speed.