Project Finance to Consumer Choice: How Public Perceptions of Bank–Developer Tie-ins Shape Mortgage Intentions

Mortgage choices are often made under complexity and information asymmetry, where simple, credible cues can steer behaviour. This study examines how publicly visible bank–developer tie-ins, rooted in project-finance arrangements, shape mortgage intentions via three proximal perceptions: trust in the bank, expected approval speed, and perceived affordability. We field a cross-sectional survey in South Sulawesi (Indonesia) and estimate a perception-led model using PLS-SEM with bias-corrected bootstrapping, complemented by PLSpredict for out-of-sample assessment. Measurement quality meets contemporary standards (reliability, convergent and discriminant validity), and the structural results indicate that tie-ins relate positively to trust, perceived speed and affordability; each perception, in turn, relates positively to intention. The direct link from tie-ins to intention is small and not statistically significant once mediators are included, while the total association remains sizeable, with approximately 87% transmitted through the three mediators (R2 for intention = .62; positive q2_predict). Findings support a mechanism in which the upstream signal of lender–developer affiliation is translated into credibility, process certainty and cost expectations that guide consumer choice. The study contributes by integrating project finance and household finance within a single empirical framework and by quantifying the relative roles of trust, speed and affordability in a non-Western urban market. Practical implications include moving beyond nominal affiliation notices to decision-useful disclosure of project oversight, service-level timelines and net-of-incentive total cost, thereby aligning institutional efficiency with consumer protection.