Refinance your optometry practice property loan

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. On an optical refinance the practice has usually changed more than the premises have. The clinical side has grown, the stock has grown with it, and the file still describes a dispensary with a testing lane behind it. We rebuild that picture, put the servicing argument where the valuation cannot reach, and stay with it past drawdown. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

We refinance commercial facilities from $50K up to $30M on the property side, with the equipment and the stock funded separately alongside it. The new property limit follows a fresh valuation and current servicing, not what you originally borrowed.

Because this asset is assessed by two parts of a credit team that do not always talk to each other. We run the comparison across more than 40 lenders, work out which will read a strata shop properly and which will count the clinical side of the practice rather than treating it all as retail turnover, and present to one at a time so your credit file does not collect an enquiry for every conversation. We also model the break costs, valuation and legals against what moving actually gains you.

Up to 70% of the current value as an owner-occupier on a retail-clinical valuation. Investment strata is assessed lower again, on the lease and the covenant behind it. The equipment and the stock are funded separately and do not form part of that figure.

It lifts the servicing rather than the valuation, and that distinction decides how a release should be sized. A valuer prices an optical shop on where it sits, what walks past it and what trades around it, so an imaging unit in the back room does not appear in the figure any more than the shopfit does. What it does is earn, with a different margin and a different pattern from frame sales, and evidenced separately it is a strong servicing argument. We present it as exactly that rather than folding it into one revenue line.

Deliberately, which is usually the change. Optical stock turns slowly, part of every range dates before it sells, and the display is part of why people walk in, so a large proportion of the holding is effectively permanent. It tends to accumulate out of trading cash and whatever overdraft is attached to the trading account, which is short-term money carrying a long-term asset. A refinance is the point to size the permanent part, fund it properly, and keep the working capital line for the timing gap it was meant for.

Yes, because they answer different questions. Bulk-billed eye tests and health-fund optical benefits are regulated, repeat income that keeps the practice trading through a soft quarter. Frame and lens sales carry the margin and most of the variability. Reported as one total, neither argument reaches a credit team. Split out over two or three years, the clinical base evidences resilience and the retail margin evidences capacity, and both are doing work.

It becomes part of the assessment, and it has usually moved since you bought. Levies rise, sinking funds get drawn down, and a special levy for a centre refurbishment can be sitting in minutes nobody has read. A lender will find all of it eventually, so putting the strata plan, the levy notices, the sinking-fund position and the recent minutes forward yourself is faster and reads considerably better than waiting for a search. Retail-strip and neighbourhood-centre strata generally read stronger than lots in large enclosed centres.

It comes into the file, and it is manageable when it is raised early. A credit team reading your trading figures needs to understand the agreement sitting over them: the term, the territory, the renewal rights and the change-of-control and assignment clauses, because those decide what happens to the trade if the arrangement ends. Buying power and marketing support show up in your margin and are worth presenting as a strength. An independent practice is assessed purely on its own trading history and goodwill.

Often both. Commercial terms to 30 years are available on practice premises, with interest only to five years and an application to extend by a further year, and one lender publishes interest only to eight years at 80% with a rate loading. Some commercial facilities carry no annual review and no unused facility fee, so once the loan settles it runs on its terms. If you would rather not repeat that exercise every year, raise it at the start, because it narrows which lenders suit the file.

Usually yes. A recent refit, a relocation or a service entity structure can leave the last set of accounts well behind the practice. Mid doc lending is built for that: income is self-certified and supported by one document of your choosing, an accountant's letter, two BAS statements, six months of trading bank statements, one year's tax return and notice of assessment, or one year's financial statement. It reaches the same 80% ceiling as full doc on loans to $4 million. A quick doc option, self-certified with no supporting document, sits at 65%.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. It is also one of the more intricate refinances in commercial finance, and the detail is what decides whether it works. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property, and a property trading wholly as a business qualifies while one with a residence attached generally does not. It has to stay the same single property, and it is limited to the balance outstanding plus accrued interest, so there is no top up, no redraw and no cash out inside the fund. That rules out funding stock or a refit from the property. Borrowed money cannot fund an improvement either, so a shopfit comes from the resources of the fund. The holding trust is reassigned to the incoming lender rather than dissolved, which carries a legal cost worth weighing against the gain. Your practice leases the premises back in writing, at market rent supported by an independent appraisal, and the rent has to actually be paid. Where the practice has taken over an adjoining tenancy or reconfigured the floor, that document needs fixing first. Cross-collateralisation is not available inside super. Fund the deposit from the fund itself, since cross-collateralisation is not available in super, the major banks have exited SMSF lending, and lenders want a liquidity buffer left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated, and we can assist to make things clearer. Reach out to our team and we will guide you through the entire process. We structure the finance, tell you which lenders will take an optometry practice 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.

Often not. On an optical practice a decline usually traces to a release sized against what the practice now earns rather than what the shop values at, or to a strata position in a large centre that the lender assesses cautiously. Both are questions of presentation and of which lender the file sits with. We look at how it was assessed and why the answer was no, then place it where that reason is not the deciding one.

Around three to six weeks with a major bank and two to four weeks with a non-bank lender for a straightforward file. A strata shop takes longer where the body-corporate records have to be obtained, a file that also moves equipment or stock lines takes longer again, and SMSF refinances longer still. We give you a realistic timeline at the start so you can plan the expiry date around it.

The existing loan statements for the property and every equipment line, two to three years of financial statements and tax returns for the practice entity, a split of the billings between clinical and dispensing income, the banner or franchise agreement where there is one, the strata plan and recent body-corporate records where the premises are strata, personal tax returns and notices of assessment for the guarantors, and a statement of assets and liabilities.

The costs are a valuation, legal and settlement fees, any lender establishment fee, discharge costs from each current lender, and break costs where you are leaving a fixed rate. Where equipment or stock lines are moving as well there are further payout figures to obtain. We put the real numbers against the benefit before you commit to anything.

Most of the time, no. Where the strata position needs work before it can go to a lender, or the structure is unusual, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before any 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 practice is located, we can arrange your finance.

Beyond refinancing the premises, we also assist with asset finance and working capital. On asset finance, that covers imaging and diagnostic units, auto-refractors, phoropters, edging-lab equipment, shopfit and practice software. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and trade facilities for frame and lens stock, and we can fold these into the refinance where it makes sense.