Refinance your specialty retail property

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 a shop refinance the number comes out of a comparable-sales valuation, and on a strip that evidence set is thin. What we do is put the recent lettings and sales your street has produced in front of the valuer before the inspection, then take the servicing case to lenders currently writing retail. We stay with it past drawdown. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

We refinance commercial facilities from $50K up to $30M, whether that is a single strip shop or several retail lots held under one structure. The new limit is set by the current valuation and by servicing, not by what you originally borrowed.

Because your bank can only tell you what your bank will do, and appetite for smaller retail varies far more between lenders than the security itself justifies. We do the legwork: we run the comparison across more than 40 lenders, work out which are genuinely writing shops in your kind of position right now, 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, and if it does not stack up we will tell you that.

75% to 80% of the current value. A shop is standard commercial security, grouped with offices and warehouses rather than with specialised assets. The figure follows a fresh valuation, not the price you originally paid.

The property and the street, rather than the business inside it. A valuer works from comparable sales and from the rent the premises could command, and both of those are produced by the properties around you: what has sold nearby and at what, what the space beside you lets for, the position, the frontage and the parking. That is the advantage in owning standard commercial security, because the valuation does not depend on a credit team forming a view about your product. Your business does the other half of the work, in servicing.

You can improve the evidence it is built on, which is the practical version of the same question. On a small strip there may be only a handful of relevant sales, some of them a year or two old, and much of the letting evidence sits with the agents who did the deals. You have been on the street the whole time, so you know which shops have sold, which lettings have been done and what has opened or closed. We assemble that into a brief and get it to the valuer before the inspection rather than arguing with a report afterwards.

It should, and it is one of the main reasons a shop is worth revaluing. A redevelopment completed, a vacancy filled by a name that draws people past your door, a lease signed next door at a rent nobody was paying when you bought: none of that appears in your accounts and all of it belongs in the valuation. The reverse is also worth knowing early, and we will tell you plainly if the evidence does not support a move before you spend anything on it.

Yes, where the current valuation supports it. Cash out on a commercial refinance is assessed on the purpose of the funds, so the lender wants to know what it is for. A shopfront update, a fitout, stock capacity for a season, the deposit on a second shop or a working capital buffer are all ordinary purposes. We evidence the purpose properly at the outset, which is what keeps it straightforward.

Not on the security side, and that works in your favour. The premises are valued as standard commercial security whatever the trade, so you are not asking a credit team to price a building on how well it understands your product, and that is the bucket that gears highest. Where the trade counts is servicing, and there it counts fully: the margins, the seasonality, the online and in-store split and the consistency across the year all feed the assessment. That is the half of the file we spend the time on.

It changes which lenders to approach rather than whether it can be done. Some lenders are selective about position and about loan size, and others write secondary retail routinely and publish an LVR for it. The valuation will reflect the position, as it did when you bought, and what matters at a refinance is placing the file with a credit team whose current appetite matches the address. That is knowable before anything is lodged.

Often not. A decline on a top up is one lender applying one policy on one day, and on smaller retail the policies differ sharply. A shop is standard commercial security, so it is written by a wide group of banks and non-banks with genuinely different appetites on position, on LVR and on how they read self-employed income. We look at why the answer was no, then place the file where that reason is not the deciding one.

Four to six weeks from application to settlement for a straightforward file. Where an SMSF, a strata lot or several properties are involved it takes longer. We give you a realistic timeline at the start so you can plan the expiry date around it.

The existing loan statements, two to three years of financial statements and tax returns for the business, personal tax returns and notices of assessment for the guarantors, a statement of assets and liabilities, and the schedules for the fitout and equipment facilities. Point-of-sale reports showing the revenue mix help the servicing read. For the property we want anything you have on recent sales and lettings nearby, and if the shop is a strata lot, the levy notices and recent minutes as well.

The costs are a valuation, legal and settlement fees, any lender establishment fee, discharge costs from your current lender, and break costs where you are leaving a fixed rate. Break costs are an economic cost, so they are calculated on the day and vary with how much fixed term is left. We put the real numbers against the benefit before you commit to anything.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. Retail premises sit comfortably inside a fund, and this is also one of the more intricate refinances in commercial finance, where the detail decides whether it works. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property. A shop trading wholly as a business qualifies, and it does not matter whether you or a tenant runs it, while a shop with a flat above it on the same title generally does not, which covers a great deal of shop-top strip retail. It has to stay the same single property, and the shop next door is a second property even where the wall between them has been opened. 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, and borrowed money cannot fund an improvement. The holding trust is reassigned to the incoming lender rather than dissolved, which carries a legal cost worth weighing against the gain. Your operating company leases the shop back 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. Reassign the holding trust to the incoming lender on the same single property, 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 a retail shop 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.

Most of the time, no. Where a refinance requires significant preparation due to its complexity, 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 shop is located, we can arrange your finance.

Beyond refinancing the shop, we also assist with asset finance and working capital. On asset finance, that covers shopfit and joinery, display and lighting, refrigeration where the trade needs it, point-of-sale systems and delivery vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to carry seasonal stock between the buy and the sell, and we can fold these into the refinance where it makes sense.

Yes, and it is more common than you would think, because the loan is set up at settlement and then simply runs while the street changes around it. 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 business owners and commercial property investors with facilities from $50,000 upwards. We will start by telling you what the shop is likely to value at now on current evidence, what sits on your existing facility, what moving costs, and whether it is worth making. If it is not, we will say so and you can stay where you are.