Commercial property finance: what changes once the security is commercial
Commercial property lending looks like a bigger home loan and behaves nothing like one. The building's income, not the borrower's, usually carries the deal — and the facility gets reviewed rather than left alone.
In residential lending the borrower services the debt and the property is a fallback. In commercial lending the property is expected to service the debt, and the borrower is the fallback. That inversion drives almost every difference that follows.
It also explains why commercial deals fail for reasons residential deals never do: a lease ending, a tenant with a weak covenant, a valuation that reads the asset differently to the vendor, a review date that arrives at the wrong moment in the cycle.
Income, not salary
The rent roll is the primary repayment source on an investment deal, and the trading entity's earnings on an owner-occupied one. Either way the test is coverage, not a household budget.
Lower gearing
Commercial security is geared more conservatively than residential, and the tolerance moves with asset type, location and lease quality rather than sitting at one number.
Shorter terms with review dates
A facility that runs a few years and is then reviewed, not a thirty-year loan left alone. The review is where borrowers get surprised — see terms and covenants.
The lease is the asset
Tenant strength, remaining term and the option structure often matter more than the building. Covered in lease covenants and WALE.
Valuation risk sits with the borrower
Commercial valuations vary far more than residential ones and can move a deal after approval. See commercial valuations.
Tax and duty complexity
GST treatment, duty and the going-concern question all sit in the transaction, and they change the cash the borrower needs at settlement — see GST and duty.
Ask these before a lender is chosen, because each one moves the panel.
- Who occupies it? The borrower's own business, a third-party tenant, or nobody yet. This is the first fork — owner-occupier or investment changes how the income is tested.
- What is the asset class? Industrial, retail, office, specialised. Appetite and gearing differ sharply, and specialised assets narrow the panel fast because resale is harder to model.
- How long is the income contracted for? Lease term remaining, options, review mechanism. Debt that outlives the lease is a different proposition to debt that sits inside it.
- Is there a date driving this? A settlement, an expiring facility, a maturity. Deadlines rank the deal and decide whether a bank process is even available.
- What is the exit or the end state? Held long term, refinanced into a bank, sold, or developed. Short-dated money without an exit is the most common way commercial borrowers get hurt — see exit strategies.
Where the deal is a purchase, purchase enquiries behave differently to refinance enquiries, which arrive with a date already attached.
Business property-purchase finance ran to $27.2b, up 18.9% year on year (ABS Lending Indicators), and business credit overall grew 10.8% year on year to the end of July (RBA Financial Aggregates, July 2026). Commercial deals are being written.
The funding mix has shifted underneath that. Australia's private credit market is now roughly $225bn (The Adviser, August 2026), and it funds a meaningful share of commercial property. It is not frictionless: some Australian real-estate credit funds gated redemptions across July and August 2026 (trade press, August 2026), which changes how readily a non-bank will extend when a settlement slips. The quarter-by-quarter picture is in commercial refinance in 2026.
We generate the enquiry, not the structure. Commercial finance leads cover commercial property purchases and refinances, debt restructures and ATO tax-debt situations, with property type, approximate value and LVR range captured at submission. The refinance flow runs $1M to $10M+.
SMSF-commercial and development scenarios arrive inside that mix rather than as separate products. Every lead is sold once, to one broker, never resold, delivered to your inbox or CRM in real time. Pay per lead, no lock-in contracts, no setup fees, and the lead is an introduction, not a recommendation.