Bottle shop property loans

Ardent Capital Group brings the same method to every client: execution and strategy, clear advice for smart lending, and long-term growth. That means the right lender, structure and timing, straight advice so you borrow with confidence, and today's deal built toward where you want to be tomorrow. We are specialists in helping business owners secure finance to purchase their own property, and we understand the complex structures that often sit around it, including multiple trusts, holding companies and self-managed super funds. Licensed retail needs a funder who lends against the freehold on its own merits rather than marking it down for the liquor licence. As you add sites or refinance to grow, the same team stays on hand well after settlement. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

A bottle shop freehold is generally funded to 60% to 70% of value, so a deposit of 30% to 40% is common. Buy the business and the licence without the building and it sits closer to 40% to 50%. The exact figure depends on your file and the security you can offer, so talk to us early.

The licence is a real asset you are buying even though you cannot see it on the shelves, and it is transferable, so lenders treat it as part of what they are lending against. How scarce it is depends entirely on the state. Queensland is the tightest: there is no standalone packaged liquor licence at all, takeaway rights sit with a commercial hotel licence, and a licensee can operate at most three detached bottle shops within ten kilometres of the main premises. Western Australia restricts large-format stores by distance and floor area and makes an applicant show that existing outlets cannot reasonably meet local demand. New South Wales, by contrast, has no cap and no moratorium, and a new packaged licence is available subject to a community impact test, so scarcity is not a given there. Check your state before you price scarcity into a purchase.

Mostly as retail premises. The valuer works from comparable rents in the strip or centre and a market yield, the same way a shop is assessed, then the packaged liquor licence and the trading figures sit above that to form the going-concern figure where the business is sold with the building. This is the key difference from a pub, which is valued on a capitalisation of EBITDA rather than on the property. It also means the site itself carries real weight, so exposure, parking and a drive-through lane move the number more than the shelves do.

If you can fund the freehold, do it. You own the building, the rent stops, the security is conventional and the LVR is materially better at 60% to 70%. A business-only purchase means you buy the trade, the fit-out and the licence while someone else keeps the building, and it funds nearer 40% to 50% with the loan term capped by the years left on your lease. A lease with under five years to run, options counted, is the most common reason a business-only purchase does not get funded at all.

Yes, and on a bottle shop it is usually the more urgent question. Packaged liquor is high volume on thin margins, so the working capital is tied up in inventory on the shelves and in the coldroom, and stock is bought separately at settlement, generally at cost on a stocktake taken the night before. We arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and inventory or trade finance lines that fund stock against the stock itself rather than against your property security. Size the facility against the December peak, not the quiet months, because a facility set to the average will strand you in the season that matters most.

Banner groups and independent chains are the retail equivalent of a franchise, and lenders read the agreement carefully. It sets your supply terms, your rebates, your pricing and often your signage and fit-out standards, and all of that flows straight into the margin the lender is underwriting. A store with a long-running banner agreement and reliable rebates reads as lower risk than an unaffiliated independent buying at spot. Expect to hand the agreement over with your financials, and tell us early if you are planning to change banner after settlement, because it changes the numbers.

Two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns for the store, BAS lodgements, and POS reports showing the sales split across beer, wine, spirits and ready-to-drink. Lenders also want relevant retail or licensed experience, because the licence carries compliance obligations and a responsible service failure can put the whole asset at risk. An operator with a trading record, or a pub group adding a store, gets a materially better outcome than a first-time buyer with no background. Where the store has traded under a previous owner, the vendor’s figures are the starting point, and we help you interrogate them before you rely on them.

For a full-doc application, most lenders want two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, personal tax returns for all guarantors, the contract of sale, the licence details and the store’s POS or trade reports. Many retailers do not fit a standard full-doc assessment neatly. Alt-doc and low-doc routes exist, supported by an accountant’s declaration, BAS lodgements and business bank statements, and they come with a slightly higher rate but open the door where the paperwork understates the income. We work through your income situation upfront to identify the best approach.

Yes, and it is usually the sensible route. A walk-in coldroom and a run of glass-door fridges are the largest single line in a bottle shop fit-out, well ahead of the shelving, the racking and the security system, and they wear out on a cycle the building does not. Financing them on a chattel mortgage over 5 to 7 years keeps the replacement out of your cash flow and off your property facility. The same route covers POS and stock control, CCTV, racking and a delivery vehicle.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. It is also one of the more intricate purchases in commercial finance, and the detail is what decides whether it works. The fund borrows under a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, so the store sits in a separate holding trust and the lender can only come after that one property. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property: a property trading wholly as a business generally qualifies, a property with a residence attached generally does not. Your operating company leases the store back from the fund, in writing, at market rent supported by an independent appraisal, and the rent has to actually be paid. Cross-collateralisation is not available inside super, so the fund needs its own deposit and the 100% LVR structures described elsewhere on this page do not work here. Lenders cap SMSF lending below a standard purchase, generally between 65% and 75%, and want cash left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated. It is, and that is exactly why we do it every day. Reach out to our team and we will guide you through the entire process. We structure the finance, tell you which lenders will take a liquor store as SMSF security and on what terms, and bring in the SMSF specialists and licensed advisers who set the fund side up. You will not be working it out on your own. Get that right and it is a solid, compliant structure.

Often, yes. A decline usually means the store went to a lender who assessed it as a specialised licensed asset when it is really retail with a licence attached, or one who would not look past a business-only purchase. Non-bank and specialist lenders are far more comfortable with licence transfers, banner agreements, shorter trading histories and funding stock as its own line. We will look at what was actually submitted, and give you a straight answer on whether it is fundable elsewhere.

Going direct means one lender’s appetite and one set of criteria. Packaged liquor sits in an awkward gap: some credit teams file it with pubs and apply licensed-venue LVRs of 50% to 65%, others read it as retail and fund it at 60% to 70%, and the difference on a $2 million store is hundreds of thousands of dollars in deposit. A specialist broker knows which lenders currently take the retail view, how each one handles a licence transfer, and who will fund the stock alongside the building.

Most of the time, no. We are paid a commission by the lender once your loan settles. Where a purchase requires significant preparation, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before work begins.

Although we are based in Sydney, we service clients across all major Australian cities, including Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart, along with their surrounding regional areas. Wherever your store is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with refrigeration finance for bottle shops and working capital for bottle shops. On asset finance, that covers the walk-in coldroom and glass-door refrigeration, shelving and racking, security and CCTV, POS and stock control systems, and delivery vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and inventory finance to cover liquor stock, the December and summer trading peaks, banner-group supply terms, and the cost of opening a second store.

Yes. That is our core ethos, helping you understand the right strategy, structure and clear advice from the very first conversation. Our main borrower profiles are established liquor retailers, independent store owners and pub groups seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, so a first commercial loan is well within our wheelhouse. We will walk you through the licence transfer, the deposit you will genuinely need, and how the stock gets funded, before you commit to anything.