Commercial property, priced before you sign the contract.

Where residential lenders score files, commercial lenders read them. The credit officer wants to know what the property is, who's in it, how long they're staying, what they pay, who the borrower is, and how the loan gets repaid at the end of the term. Each of those answers narrows the shortlist of lenders who'll price the deal sharply. The panel splits naturally on commercial. A major bank will write investment-grade metro property with very sharp indicative pricing for a $2M industrial unit with a national tenant on a 5+5. Several second-tier banks are strong on regional industrial and retail, particularly in QLD and northern NSW. The major banks write the larger files and the relationship deals but the term sheet often comes with covenants. The specialist non-banks pick up the deals where the lease is short, the tenant is private, or the borrower's structure is complex. We sit across all of it. Most files we shortlist to three lenders before any indicative term sheet is requested. The right lender is the one whose policy fits the asset class, the LVR, and the borrower entity. The wrong lender can take eight weeks to decline a file the right lender would have approved in three. Owner-occupier files price differently to investment. An owner-occupier — your business buying the premises it trades from — can borrow at a higher LVR with the right lender, and the loan can be partly serviced by the trading business. Investment files are more conservative for most lenders, with rates 20–50bps higher than equivalent owner-occupier. Investment-grade tenants (ASX-listed, government, national franchise on a long lease) unlock sharper pricing; mum-and-dad tenants on a 2+2 do not.