Unconditional approval/Contract signed is when the bank is locked in ie has a commitment to lend. That will never occur on an off the plan property when someone pays their deposit for various reasons.
1. Credit checks are only valid for ~ 90 days.
2. Over the course of 1-2 years waiting for your property to be built your situation will more than likely change as a result you'll need to re-supply all supporting documentation ie Income, Proof of Income, Assets and evidence, expenses etc.
3. Valuation will only be done once the property is at lock-up/internally complete. This can only be done maybe 1-2 months prior to completion pending any holdups. Personally my valuation was done in Feb/March and we settled June that year but we had significant delays with title registration despite the property being complete and ready to move in.
4. Until title registration is complete the bank will not settle.
While applications in progress are counted internally in terms of volume/$$$ in the pipeline the numbers reported in the article and the numbers that matter for a bank are $$$ settled.
