Hotel property finance

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 hotel pulls the property, the operating business and often the accommodation trade together at once, and we know which desks read that mix and how the room income shapes what the deal supports. As the property and the business both grow, we stay alongside you for whatever comes next. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

On its trade, not its bricks. A specialist hotel valuer capitalises maintainable earnings, and where the asset is being repositioned or is not yet stabilised runs a discounted cash flow instead. The metrics that drive those earnings are occupancy, average daily rate, and the two combined as RevPAR, or revenue per available room. RevPAR is the number the market benchmarks you on, but it is the earnings underneath it that the lender actually lends against, which is why two hotels with the same RevPAR and very different cost bases do not value the same.

A hotel freehold going concern is generally funded to 55% to 65% of value, so a deposit of 35% to 45% is common, with resorts nearer 55%. Whether you run it or let it to an operator is the main lever. With extra security, a cross-collateralised structure can reach up to 100% of the price. The exact number depends on your file, so talk to us.

More than most buyers expect. Online travel agent commission typically runs around 15% to 20% of the room rate, so a hotel filling its rooms almost entirely through the booking platforms has a materially thinner net margin than its headline revenue suggests. Lenders look at the direct-booking share for exactly that reason, because a hotel with a strong direct channel keeps more of every night it sells. If your direct share is improving, that is worth evidencing in the application rather than leaving the credit team to assume the worst.

Yes, and it shapes your LVR. If you run the hotel, the lender is underwriting you as an operator and the full income risk sits with you, which keeps the LVR in the 55% to 65% band. A hotel let to an established operator on a long lease is assessed closer to an investment asset with a tenant, on the lease covenant and the rent, and it can lend higher. A management agreement sits between the two: the operator runs the hotel, but the trading risk stays with you, so lenders treat it much closer to owner-operated.

Generally yes. A recognised brand, whether a full franchise licence or a soft-brand affiliation, brings a central reservation system, loyalty members and a lift in direct bookings, all of which support occupancy and reduce the reliance on OTA channels. Lenders take that into account. The trade-off is that brand agreements carry fees, a mandated FF&E reserve and a refurbishment cycle you are contractually bound to, and the credit team will deduct all of it before it tests servicing. We present the agreement in full rather than letting it surface late in the assessment.

Yes, though it is the thinnest appetite in accommodation. A resort draws guests to the location itself, so demand concentrates into a few peak months and the buyer pool for the property is narrow, which the valuer discounts for. Expect the low end of the band, around 55% LVR, and expect the funding to come from lenders who actively write regional and coastal accommodation rather than from a metropolitan credit team. We will tell you plainly what a specific resort can carry before you commit to it.

Two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns for the hotel, plus monthly occupancy and average daily rate data for at least the last twelve months so the seasonality is visible rather than averaged away. Lenders also want the split between room revenue, food and beverage, and conference and function income, because a hotel earning most of its money from rooms is assessed differently to one leaning on a busy restaurant. Relevant accommodation management experience is the real gate: a newcomer to the sector gets the strongest result by appointing an established operator under a management agreement, which is one way we help bridge that gap. Where the hotel has traded under a previous owner, the vendor 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 property-management system reports showing occupancy and ADR, and any lease, management or brand agreement. Many 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. We work through your income situation upfront to identify the best approach.

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 hotel 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 hotel 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 hotel 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.

Yes, and it is one of the most common reasons hoteliers come back to us. Most hotels refresh soft goods every six or seven years and do a full room refit every twelve to fifteen, and a tired room shows up immediately in the rate you can hold. Refurbishment can be built into the facility, drawn against progress invoices, or funded separately as equipment finance over the FF&E. Where the hotel has grown its RevPAR since purchase, a revaluation on the current trade often releases the equity to pay for it.

Going direct means one lender's appetite and one set of criteria. Accommodation is a sector where appetite swings hard: some banks will only look at a metropolitan hotel let to a named operator, others will fund an owner-operated regional property, and several have stepped back from resorts altogether. A specialist broker knows which lenders are actually writing hotels this quarter and how each one reads a RevPAR-based valuation. Presenting the trade to the wrong credit team is how a fundable hotel gets declined.

Often, yes. A decline usually means the application went to a lender whose appetite did not match the asset, not that the hotel is unfundable. Banks have tightened accommodation criteria and several are cautious about seasonal and regional properties. Non-bank and specialist lenders assess hotels differently, and are frequently more comfortable with owner-operated trade, shorter trading histories and resort locations. We will give you a straight answer on whether it is fundable elsewhere.

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.

It matters a great deal to the LVR. Lenders commonly split their hotel policy on it, because gaming revenue is stable and quantifiable in a way room revenue is not. A freehold hotel with gaming entitlements gears toward the top of the range and sometimes past it. A pure accommodation hotel with no gaming can find some lenders pulling back closer to 50%. If you are buying accommodation-only, plan for the lower end and let us find the lenders who are comfortable there.

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 hotel is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with hotel fit-out finance and working capital for hotels. On asset finance, that covers guest-room FF&E and furnishing packages, restaurant and bar fit-out, commercial laundry equipment, pool and gym plant, conference AV, and the property-management and booking technology. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to cover seasonal occupancy troughs, OTA commission timing, staffing through the peak, and refurbishment cycles.

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 experienced hoteliers, accommodation operators and hospitality investors seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, so a first commercial loan is well within our wheelhouse. We will walk you through the going-concern structure, the deposit you will genuinely need, and how the valuer will read your RevPAR, before you commit to anything.