Light industrial and workshop unit 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 light industrial or workshop purchase is shaped around how you actually use the shed or trade premises, and around a lender who understands industrial property and values it properly rather than reading it off a template. As the business grows or you add another site, we stay with you long after the loan settles. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

No, and it is well worth knowing before you buy. A workshop unit is standard commercial security, in the same bucket as a warehouse, a shop or an office, and it is valued on comparable sales and the rent the premises could command. That is quite different from a pub, a motel or a caravan park, where the lending gears lower because the asset is specialised. Whether you run a joinery, a welding shop or a print room, the unit lends on the same footing, because the premises are the security and they lend like the industrial property they are. That is why a strata industrial unit is such a good first commercial purchase.

A workshop or industrial unit typically gears to around 80% as standard commercial 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.

Because on a strata unit the lender is assessing the scheme as well as you and the unit. If the body corporate is carrying its own debt, if the sinking fund is thin, or if a special levy is already on the table for a roof or a car park, that is a real cost attached to your unit and the lender will price it in. It can tighten the lending, and if nobody has looked it can do so late in the process. The good news is that none of this is hidden. It is all in the strata report, which is exactly why we read it early. A clean, well-run scheme with a funded sinking fund is a genuine asset and it supports the deal rather than complicating it.

It is the record of the scheme your unit sits in: the sinking fund balance, the levies each owner pays, the building insurance, the minutes of the owners meetings, any works planned and any dispute under way. Get it before you exchange rather than after. It is a modest cost and it answers the questions the lender is going to ask anyway. We read it with you and we raise anything in it with the lender ourselves, so it forms part of the submission rather than arriving as a late surprise from someone else.

It depends on how it was created, and it is worth checking. Some exclusive-use areas are on your title as part of the lot. Others are granted by the by-laws or shown only on a plan, which is a different thing. This matters because a lender takes security over what is on the title, and a valuer values what is on the title. It also matters to you, because a mezzanine or a hardstand yard you thought you owned may be an entitlement the scheme can revisit. Your solicitor will confirm the position on the contract, and we build the finance around what is actually there.

Yes, and it is the most common purchase we do at this end of the market. You already know the unit works for the trade, the lender can see a proven operator inside it, 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 unit is worth to a tenant, which helps the valuation rather than hindering it. For a great many trades, this is the moment renting turns into owning.

Four things do most of the work and all of them are easy to establish early. Three-phase power, because a joiner, a welder or a printer runs on it and retrofitting a supply is not cheap. The roller door height and the clear span height, because they decide whether your van, your timber lengths or your steel physically get inside. The floor loading, because the slab has to carry the machines you intend to put on it. And the mezzanine, if there is one, because it is worth knowing whether it was approved and whether it counts in the lettable area the valuer measures. None of these are obstacles. They are simply cheaper to know about at the offer stage than at settlement.

Usually yes, and the estates are built for it, but it needs to be confirmed rather than assumed, because two separate rules apply. The zoning sets what use is permitted on the land, and the by-laws of the scheme set what is permitted inside it, including hours, noise, dust, fumes and what you can store outside your roller door. A joinery with dust extraction, a welding shop, a print room or a commercial laundry can each sit comfortably in the right estate and awkwardly in the wrong one. We check both before the application goes in, so the trade you run and the unit you buy are matched from the start.

No. Both are standard commercial security and both are valued on comparable sales and achievable rent. The difference is that a strata unit brings a scheme with it, so there is one more document to read and one more party involved. In exchange you usually get a lower entry price, a building someone else maintains and insures, and plenty of comparable sales nearby to support the valuation. Some lenders are selective on very small units, so the lender we take you to matters. It is a strong, well-understood asset class and it is why so many first commercial purchases are strata industrial units.

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 strata report if the unit is in a scheme, and the lease if you are buying the premises you occupy. Plenty of trades 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. A strata industrial unit 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 unit 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 workshop unit 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 unit 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 workshop unit 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, and it is a common second step once a trade outgrows the first unit. The finance can run as a second purchase in its own right or against the equity in the unit you already own. Physically joining the two, cutting an opening in the party wall or taking them as one tenancy, generally needs the body corporate on side and may need a change to the strata plan, so it is worth raising at the start rather than after you exchange. We structure the purchase so that the second unit stands on its own if the approval takes time.

Often, yes. A decline usually means the file went to a lender whose appetite did not match it, not that the unit is unfundable. The two common causes at this end of the market are a credit team that is selective on smaller units, and a strata scheme that nobody read until the valuation raised it. Both are workable, and the second is a great deal easier to handle before it happens. Non-bank and specialist lenders assess industrial property differently and several publish an 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. In small industrial the spread between lenders is unusually wide: the majors do not publish an owner-occupier commercial LVR at all, several non-banks publish 80% in their product guides, and lenders differ on how small a unit they will take and how closely they read the scheme behind it. A specialist broker knows which lenders are genuinely writing strata industrial this quarter and how each one reads a body corporate. Presenting a good unit 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 workshop unit is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with workshop machinery finance and working capital for workshop operators. On asset finance, that covers CNC machines, panel saws, edgebanders, lathes, presses, welders, laser cutters, printing presses, laundry equipment, dust and fume extraction plant, forklifts and trade vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to carry materials and stock, to fund a fit-out, 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 trades, small manufacturers and industrial owner-occupiers seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, and a strata industrial unit is very often a first commercial purchase, so it is squarely in our wheelhouse. We will walk you through what the unit will actually value at, what the strata report needs to show, and the deposit you will genuinely need, before you commit to anything.