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Commercial Property Finance
Owner-occupied premises, investment properties, construction and development. Whether you are buying premises, building a portfolio or developing for the first time, we are with you for the whole journey, not just the application.
- Founded by two former bankers
- Commercial and business finance specialists
- Perth based, working Australia wide
- MFAA member
Quick facts: commercial property finance (checked 14 August 2026)
| Published LVR ceilings | 75-80% (La Trobe 75% full doc and lease doc; Pepper Money 80% to $5m; Liberty 80% on lease income) |
| Realistic equity entry point | 20-25% of purchase price, plus duty and costs |
| WA transfer duty | Same general scale as residential, no commercial concession (RevenueWA) |
| Duty on a $1,000,000 purchase | Approximately $42,616 at settlement |
| Loan terms published | Up to 30 years (La Trobe, Pepper), interest only up to 5 years |
| Serviceability test | Assessed at the lender's buffered rate, not the rate you pay |
Invested in where the property takes you
Buying a commercial property is rarely just a transaction. For most business owners it's a long term decision that shapes how the business operates, what the balance sheet looks like and what options exist down the track. Whether you're purchasing premises to secure your occupancy, building a portfolio or making your first move into commercial property, we want to understand where you're trying to get to, not just what you're trying to buy.
That means thinking about the structure with your next move in mind, not just the one in front of you. The right facility today should give you flexibility later, whether that's drawing on equity, refinancing on better terms or using the property as a foundation for the next acquisition.
What we can help with
As a commercial property finance broker in Perth, our role is to translate the property, tenant, borrower and security position into a credit story a lender can actually approve. That matters most when the asset is specialised, the tenancy profile is uneven, or the purchase needs a sharper funding structure than a standard bank product.
- Owner-occupied commercial property purchases
- Buying premises through your super fund, covered in our guide to SMSF commercial property loans
- Commercial investment property including retail, office, industrial and medical
- Construction and development finance
- Land bank and pre-development facilities
- Refinancing existing commercial mortgages
- Mixed-use property transactions
Commercial property lending requires a different approach
Residential lending follows a fairly predictable process. Commercial property is different. Lender appetite varies significantly by property type, location, tenancy profile and deal structure. A transaction one lender won't consider is straightforward business for another. Valuations are more subjective, income assessments are more complex, and the conditions process can be longer and more demanding than most borrowers expect.
Knowing which lender to approach, and how to frame the deal before you approach them, is the difference between a transaction that moves and one that stalls. We provide that guidance before you commit to a price or a timeline, not after.
The numbers that frame a Perth purchase
Most commercial lending policy is unpublished, but the lenders that do publish set the frame. La Trobe Financial publishes a maximum 75% LVR for both full doc and lease doc commercial lending, tiered by loan size (75% to $3 million, 70% to $25 million, 65% to $50 million) on terms up to 30 years (latrobefinancial.com.au, checked 14 August 2026). Pepper Money publishes up to 80% LVR with a $5 million cap (peppermoney.com.au, stated current as of 1 July 2024, checked 14 August 2026), and Liberty publishes up to 80% where the loan is serviced by lease income (liberty.com.au, effective 13 August 2026). A useful detail inside those numbers: on La Trobe's published policy the lease doc ceiling is not lower than full doc, the LVR is identical, so documentation type moves the pricing and the loan size more than it moves the ceiling.
Duty is the cost buyers underestimate. WA applies its general transfer duty scale to commercial property with no commercial concession and no separate investor scale, topping out at $28,453 plus $5.15 per $100 above $725,000 (WA Department of Treasury and Finance, general rate in force since 2 July 2014, checked 14 August 2026). On a $1,000,000 purchase that is approximately $42,616 at settlement. Stack it against a 75% LVR facility and the real cash to complete a $1,000,000 purchase sits above $292,000 before transaction costs.
The Perth market itself is carrying numbers worth knowing before you price a deal. Knight Frank's Perth CBD Office report for Q1 2026 puts prime vacancy at 15.6% and secondary at 19.2% as at January 2026, with prime yields at 7.6%, and notes no new CBD office supply is forecast until 2031 (Knight Frank Research, Perth CBD Office State of the Market, Q1 2026, checked 14 August 2026). On the industrial side, the same firm's Q1 2026 Perth Industrial report has prime yields at 6.5% and industrial land values up 14.4% to 15.7% over the year, the strongest land value growth of any Australian capital in that report (Knight Frank Research, Perth Industrial State of the Market, Q1 2026, checked 14 August 2026). Sharper rents and tightening supply cut both ways: they support valuations for owners, and they punish buyers who price a deal on last year's assumptions.
Whether the income services the debt is the other half of the assessment, and it is decided at the lender's buffered assessment rate rather than the rate you pay. How that calculation actually works, and the published policy behind it, is covered in our guide to commercial loan DSCR.
Buy the premises, or keep leasing?
This is the decision most business owners are actually making, and the rent-versus-repayment comparison people reach for first is the wrong one. Three things decide it.
How long you will be there. Buying makes sense when your occupancy outlasts the loan review cycle. A business that might double, halve or relocate inside 3 years is better off renting the flexibility.
What the deposit does elsewhere. At a 75% LVR on a $1,000,000 Perth purchase, the cash to complete is above $292,000 once WA transfer duty of approximately $42,616 is added to the $250,000 deposit. If that money would fund stock, equipment or a hire that returns more than the property will, the property is the more expensive option even when the repayment looks close to the rent.
Whether anyone else would want the building. Lenders price resale risk, and so should you. Standard industrial and office stock in an established precinct behaves like an asset. Premises fitted tightly around one operator in a single-industry town behave like a cost.
Where the answer is buy, the structure question comes next, because premises can be held in the trading company, in a separate entity, or in super. Our guide to buying your business premises in WA works through the whole sequence, and SMSF commercial property loans covers the super route.
What lenders actually look at
A residential application is mostly about the borrower. A commercial application is about four things at once, and a weakness in any one of them can be offset by strength in another. Knowing which lever to pull is most of the job.
- The property. Type, location, specification and how readily it would re-let or resell. Specialised assets fund at lower LVRs because the lender is asking who else would buy it.
- The income. For an investment purchase, the lease: its length, the strength of the tenant behind it, and what happens at expiry. For an owner-occupier, the trading performance of the business that will pay the loan.
- The borrower. Structure, experience, financial position and the track record behind the numbers.
- The security position. What sits behind the loan in total, including any residential equity supporting the deposit and whether the facilities are separable later.
Serviceability is then tested at the lender buffered assessment rate rather than the rate you pay, which is where more deals fail than on the property itself. The mechanics of that calculation are in our guide to commercial loan DSCR.
Different buyers, different deals
Commercial property finance is not one product. What a lender will do depends heavily on which of these you are.
The owner-occupier buying the premises the business already trades from. The strongest version of this deal, because the business servicing the loan is the tenant, and the rent stops leaving the building.
The investor buying tenanted stock for yield. Assessed on the lease more than on you, which is why a lease doc structure can fund a deal that full financials would not.
The fund buying business real property inside super and leasing it back to the trading entity on commercial terms. Untouched by the borrowing change that commenced 10 August 2026, which was written around commercial property rather than against it.
The developer funding a build or a subdivision rather than a completed asset, where the facility is drawn in stages against progress. That is a different product again, covered in development finance in Perth.
Plenty of transactions are two of these at once. A business owner buying premises and a business in the same deal is running an acquisition and a property purchase side by side, which we handle as one funding structure rather than two applications. That overlap is covered in acquisition finance.
Two of these situations have guides of their own: a sale and leaseback of business premises for the owner selling the building and staying as tenant, and lease doc commercial loans for the investor whose lease does the qualifying instead of their financials.
The costs that sit outside the purchase price
Buyers who budget the deposit alone get a bad surprise at settlement. On a $1,000,000 Perth commercial purchase, plan for the deposit at 20 to 25%, WA transfer duty of approximately $42,616, GST unless the going concern exemption applies, a valuation commissioned by the lender rather than by you, legal costs on a contract that is longer and more negotiated than a residential one, and lender establishment fees. Working capital for the move itself sits outside all of that.
GST is the one most often missed. It is usually payable on a commercial purchase, and the going concern exemption only reaches sales where the leases transfer with the property and both parties agree the treatment in writing before settlement. Buy vacant premises to occupy yourself and you will generally fund the GST at settlement and claim it back afterwards, which is a real cash gap for a quarter. Some lenders will fund it, many will not.
To put your own numbers against all of this, our commercial property loan calculator works out the deposit, the WA duty, the cash to complete and the repayment at both your rate and the buffered rate a lender tests.
When to get us involved
Before you make an offer, not after it is accepted. Once a price and a settlement date are agreed, the funding has to fit around terms that were set without a lender in the room. The things worth deciding early are the ones that are expensive to change later: which entity buys, whether residential equity is used and how it can be released again, whether the contract needs a finance clause with a realistic timeframe, and whether the going concern treatment has been agreed in writing.
Commercial valuations and conditions take longer than residential ones, and a finance clause written to a residential timetable is the most common avoidable problem we see. If you are weeks away from making an offer, that is the right time to talk.
Frequently asked questions
What LVR will lenders go to on commercial property in Australia?
The published ceilings sit at 75 to 80%, and most lenders publish nothing at all. La Trobe Financial publishes a maximum 75% LVR for both its full doc and lease doc commercial loans, tiered by loan size: 75% to $3 million, 70% to $25 million and 65% to $50 million, on terms up to 30 years (latrobefinancial.com.au, checked 14 August 2026). Pepper Money publishes a maximum 80% LVR with a $5 million loan cap, or $3 million where the security is residential-zoned commercial (peppermoney.com.au, stated current as of 1 July 2024, checked 14 August 2026). Liberty publishes up to 80% on commercial loans serviced by lease income (liberty.com.au, effective 13 August 2026). Below those ceilings the deal does not fail, it needs more equity or additional security, and specialised assets or single-industry locations fund lower because the lender is asking who else would buy the property.
How much is stamp duty on a commercial property purchase in WA?
Western Australia charges the same general transfer duty scale on a commercial purchase as on a house, and there is no commercial concession. The scale runs from $1.90 per $100 at the bottom to $28,453 plus $5.15 per $100 above $725,000 (WA Department of Treasury and Finance, transfer duty general rate, scale in force since 2 July 2014, checked 14 August 2026). On a $1,000,000 commercial purchase that works out to approximately $42,616, payable at settlement on top of your deposit and costs. Buyers who budget the deposit alone find this out at the worst possible time, which is why we put the duty in the funding table on day one.
What deposit do I need to buy a commercial property?
Working back from the published lending ceilings of 75 to 80% LVR, plan on equity of 20 to 25% of the purchase price as the entry point, plus transfer duty and transaction costs on top. On a $1,000,000 Perth purchase at 75% LVR, that is a $250,000 deposit plus approximately $42,616 in WA transfer duty, so realistic cash to complete sits above $292,000 before valuation, legal and establishment costs. The deposit is also asset-dependent: standard industrial and office stock in established precincts funds at the top of the published range, while specialised or single-tenant-town assets need more equity because the lender prices the resale risk.
Should I buy my business premises or keep leasing?
Buy when you expect to occupy the space for longer than the loan review cycle, when the deposit is money the business does not need for growth, and when the building would suit another tenant if you moved on. Lease when the business is still finding its shape, when the same cash compounds faster inside the business than in property, or when the premises are so specific to you that resale would be thin. The number that decides it for most owners is the cash to complete rather than the repayment: at a 75% LVR on a $1,000,000 Perth purchase you need $250,000 of equity plus approximately $42,616 of WA transfer duty, so above $292,000 before valuation, legal and establishment costs. Run that against what the same money does inside the business over five years. Our guide to buying your business premises in WA works through the full comparison.
Do I pay GST when I buy a commercial property?
GST is usually payable on a commercial property purchase, which is the opposite of the residential position most buyers are used to. The main exception is the going concern exemption: where the property sells with its leases in place, the sale can be GST free, provided the sale is for payment, the purchaser is registered or required to be registered for GST, and both parties agree in writing before settlement that the sale is of a going concern. Buying vacant premises to occupy yourself generally falls outside the exemption, so the GST has to be funded at settlement and claimed back afterwards. That gap is real money for a quarter, some lenders will fund it and many will not, so ask before you assume. Confirm the treatment with your accountant on the specific contract.
What is a lease doc commercial loan, and does it cost me a higher LVR?
A lease doc loan is assessed on the rental income the property produces rather than on full financial statements for the borrower. On published policy it does not cost you LVR. La Trobe Financial publishes an identical maximum 75% LVR for both its full doc and lease doc commercial lending (latrobefinancial.com.au, checked 14 August 2026), and Liberty publishes up to 80% where the loan is serviced by lease income (liberty.com.au, effective 13 August 2026). What documentation type does move is the pricing and the loan size rather than the ceiling. It suits buyers whose accounts understate the position, such as an investor holding property in a structure with limited trading history, or an owner whose most recent year does not reflect current earnings.
How do lenders value a commercial property differently from a house?
A house is valued on comparable sales. A commercial property is valued primarily on the income it produces, capitalised at a yield the valuer judges appropriate for the asset, the location and the strength of the lease. That means the tenant matters as much as the building: lease length, the covenant behind it, and what happens at expiry all move the number. It also means the valuation can move without the building changing at all. Knight Frank put Perth CBD prime office yields at 7.6% and Perth industrial prime yields at 6.5% in their Q1 2026 reports (Knight Frank Research, Perth CBD Office and Perth Industrial State of the Market, Q1 2026, checked 14 August 2026). A property let at $100,000 a year is worth materially less at a 7.6% capitalisation rate than at 6.5%, and neither figure is anything the owner controls.
Can I use the equity in my home to buy commercial premises?
Often yes, and it is one of the most common ways owner-occupiers bridge the deposit gap. Residential equity can be released to fund the commercial deposit, which usually gets you a better rate on that portion than commercial security would. The trade-off is that your home is then supporting a business asset, so a problem in the business reaches the house. Where possible we structure it so the two can be separated later, by keeping the facilities distinct rather than cross-collateralised, and by setting a release point once the commercial property has enough equity to stand alone. Whether that is achievable depends on the numbers, and it is worth deciding before the loan is written rather than trying to unwind it afterwards.
Why does a commercial loan term matter more than the interest rate?
Because the term drives the repayment, and the repayment drives whether the deal passes serviceability. Published non-bank terms run up to 30 years (La Trobe Financial and Pepper Money, checked 14 August 2026), with interest only available up to 5 years, but many commercial facilities amortise over a shorter period and carry a review or refinance point well before the end. A shorter amortisation means a higher repayment for the same borrowing, so a deal can fail on term while the rate looks competitive. Serviceability is then tested at the lender buffered rate rather than the rate you pay. Plan for the review date from day one: a facility that needs refinancing in three years is manageable when you know about it, and a problem when it arrives during a soft trading year.
Can I buy my business premises through my super fund after the 2026 rule change?
Yes. The borrowing change that commenced 10 August 2026 was written around commercial property rather than against it. A new limited recourse borrowing arrangement can only be used to acquire real property that is business real property at the time the arrangement is entered into, meaning property used wholly and exclusively in one or more businesses. Commercial premises, warehouses and offices are exactly that, so the strategy survives the change while residential borrowing inside super does not. A fund can also lease business real property to a related party, including your own trading company, provided the arrangement runs on commercial terms with a market rent and a proper lease. The rules are strict and the structure has to be right from the start, which is covered in full in our guide to SMSF commercial property loans.
Get started
Want to talk it through?
Send us a short enquiry. We'll tell you whether it's fundable, how we'd structure it, and which lender we'd take it to. No obligation, and no meeting required to get an answer.
Prefer to talk? Call Rowan on 0483 292 005 or Ari on 0434 929 370.