Cold storage 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. A coldstore is specialised, and only a handful of funders are genuinely comfortable backing refrigerated space, so knowing where it fits really matters. As the operation grows and the next site comes into view, we stay in your corner. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

No, and it is well worth understanding. We read the published security and credit policies of the Australian lenders active in commercial property, and not one of them names cold storage, a refrigerated warehouse or temperature-controlled premises as a specialised, restricted or excluded security. It is not a lending category at all. A cold store sits in the standard commercial bucket, the one ANZ describes as "shops, offices, warehouses", against a non-standard list of motels, hotels, pubs and theme parks. It is valued on comparable sales and the rent the premises could command, exactly like any other shed. So when you are told that refrigeration means lower gearing, that is an assumption being made about your building, not a policy being quoted. Being in the standard bucket is why a cold store freehold borrows further than the number you were probably quoted.

A cold store or shed typically gears to around 80% as standard industrial security. Add residential or other business security and a cross-collateralised structure can reach up to 100% of the purchase price, subject to serviceability. Your exact number depends on your file, so talk to us.

Part of it does, and the line is precise, so it is worth getting right. A mortgage is over real property. Fixtures form part of the land and are inside the security. Chattels do not, and are not normally included in a mortgage valuation. So the insulated panel, the in-slab refrigeration, the underfloor heating that stops the slab heaving under a freezer, the dock levellers and the fixed racking read as part of the building. They are in the security and they do support the value. The free-standing plant that can be unbolted and trucked away is a chattel, and it is funded on its own facility. That is the whole distinction. It is not that a valuer discounts refrigeration, because that is not what happens. What is built into the building is security, what can be removed is not, and the two are funded accordingly.

On its own facility, usually a chattel mortgage or equipment finance, and that is a deliberate advantage rather than a compromise. Plant is funded on terms suited to plant, and the property facility stays clean, which usually improves the rate on it. Forklifts, refrigerated vehicles and mobile handling equipment are funded the same way. Splitting the two is how the whole facility gets funded rather than half of it, and we arrange both sides together so nothing falls between them at settlement.

It should not, and it is worth knowing about in advance. Where a facility has been purpose-built for one occupier and would not readily suit another, a valuer may report both an existing-use value and an alternative-use value, so the lender has the full picture in front of it. This is a normal and well-understood part of valuing purpose-built industrial property, not a mark against your building. We know when it is coming, we prepare for it, and we present the facility for what it is: an industrial building with fitted improvements that a wide range of occupiers can use.

Yes, and it is the most common cold store purchase we do. You already know what the chambers hold and what they earn, the lender can see a proven operator in the premises, and the rent you stop paying to your landlord is added back when a lender tests whether you can service the loan. The lease you are currently on is also good evidence of what the property is worth to a tenant, which helps the valuation rather than hindering it.

Four things do most of the work and they are all easy to establish early. The incoming power supply, because refrigeration is the largest line on the bill and lifting the supply to a site is not a small cheque. The condition and age of the insulated panel, because it is part of the building and it is what keeps the chambers holding temperature. The floor, because a freezer needs underfloor heating to stop the slab heaving and a failed system is expensive to put right. And the age of the refrigeration plant, because it is the single largest replacement cost you may inherit. None of these are obstacles. They are simply cheaper to know about at the offer stage than at settlement, and we help you price them in.

Not to the classification, which stays standard commercial either way. It matters to your numbers, and therefore to serviceability. A frozen chamber costs materially more to run than a chilled one, and ambient space costs least of all, so the temperature split across the building drives your power bill and your margin. It also drives who else could use the building, which is what a valuer is thinking about. A multi-zone facility with chilled, frozen and ambient space under one roof suits a wider range of occupiers than a single-temperature building.

If food is stored in the facility, then yes, and it is worth having the paperwork in order before you apply. A food business operating a cold store will hold the relevant food safety registration and, in most cases, an accredited food safety programme built on HACCP principles, with the audits to match. Lenders do not usually publish this as a credit condition, but a current, clean audit history is powerful evidence that the business is well run, and we put it in front of the credit team rather than leaving them to wonder. Your food safety auditor and your local regulator will confirm exactly what applies to your operation.

Then it needs to be costed before you settle, not after, because it changes what you can afford to pay for the property. A compressor pack, condensers and evaporators are a significant cost, so it is worth knowing their condition at the offer stage, when you can price it in and build the finance around it. It is entirely fundable: replacement plant is funded on its own facility, separately from the property loan, and a modern pack that cuts the power bill improves the trading figures a lender assesses. We get a plant condition assessment into the file early and build the finance around what it finds.

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 lease if you are buying the premises you occupy, your power bills, and any plant condition or food safety audit reports on the facility. Lenders want to see that the chambers are full and that the throughput is repeatable, so a storage contract with a food manufacturer, a supermarket or a distributor is worth naming in the submission because it is contracted income rather than spot pallets. Plenty of operators 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, at a slightly higher rate. We work through your income situation upfront to identify the best approach.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. An industrial shed sits comfortably inside an SMSF purchase. 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 cold 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 cold store trading wholly as a business qualifies, and it does not matter whether you or a tenant runs it. A site with a residence on the same title generally does not. Your operating company leases the cold 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 80%, 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 cold 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 facility went to a lender whose appetite did not match it, not that the facility is unfundable. The two common causes are a credit team treating a cold store as a specialised trading asset when no lender policy in this country says it is one, and confusion over what the mortgage actually captures, with the plant and the building run together into one muddled application. Both are fixable. Non-bank and specialist lenders assess industrial property to a published LVR the majors will not commit to in writing. We will give you a straight answer on whether it is fundable elsewhere.

Going direct means one lender’s appetite and one set of criteria, and in this niche it often means one banker’s assumption about refrigeration. The spread between lenders is wide: the majors do not publish an owner-occupier commercial LVR at all, while several non-banks publish 80% for industrial security in their product guides. A specialist broker knows which lenders are genuinely writing industrial property this quarter, and how to present a cold store as the standard commercial security it is, with the fixtures and the chattels set out clearly. Presenting a cold store to the wrong credit team is how a fundable purchase gets declined.

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 cold store is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with refrigeration and cool-room finance and working capital for cold storage operators. On asset finance, that covers refrigeration plant and compressor packs, racking, dock levellers, materials handling equipment, forklifts and refrigerated vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to carry stock through a seasonal peak, to fund an extension between jobs, and to cover wages.

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 industrial owner-occupiers and business owners seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, and buying the facility you already trade from is very often a first commercial purchase, so it is well within our wheelhouse. We will walk you through what the building will actually value at, what sits inside the mortgage and what is funded separately, and the deposit you will genuinely need, before you commit to anything.