Private Lender Melbourne

Melbourne's development-driven property market

Melbourne's property market has long been defined by its appetite for medium-density infill development. The city's planning framework — shaped by successive iterations of Plan Melbourne and the Residential Zones reforms — actively encourages townhouse, dual-occupancy, and boutique apartment development across the inner and middle rings. Suburbs like Brunswick, Northcote, Thornbury, Preston, and Reservoir in the north, and Carnegie, Bentleigh, and Oakleigh in the south-east, have become production lines for two-to-eight-lot townhouse projects developed by small-to-medium Pty Ltd builders and developer entities. These operators typically need construction finance without presale requirements because the individual townhouse lots are sold on completion at market value — not off the plan.

The inner city presents a different dynamic. Converted warehouses in Collingwood, Abbotsford, and Cremorne — Melbourne's creative and tech precinct — attract entity buyers who acquire commercial property and convert or reposition it for higher-value use. South Melbourne, Port Melbourne, and Fishermans Bend are undergoing large-scale urban renewal, with entities needing to acquire land holdings and carry them through planning and permit processes that can stretch twelve to eighteen months with VCAT involvement. Bridging finance arranged as a first mortgage against the "as is" land value is the standard solution for entities that need to lock in a site before a permit is issued.

Melbourne's south-east industrial corridor — running from Dandenong South through Hallam, Cranbourne, and Officer — has experienced exceptional demand for logistics, warehousing, and cold-storage facilities. Entity borrowers in this corridor often acquire existing industrial assets with vacant possession, carry out refurbishment or reconfiguration, and then lease to tenants on long-term commercial leases before refinancing into an investment facility. We arrange first mortgages for the acquisition and holding period, providing the entity with working capital while the asset is repositioned.

Victoria-specific regulatory considerations

Entity borrowers transacting on Victorian property should account for several state-level regulatory factors:

• —VIC State Revenue Office (SRO) land tax. Victoria's land tax regime is assessed on the total unimproved value of all taxable land held by an entity as at 31 December each year. Companies and trustees are not eligible for the principal place of residence exemption and are taxed from the first dollar above the tax-free threshold (which is lower for trusts than for companies). For entity borrowers holding multiple Melbourne properties, aggregation of land values can push the combined holding into higher marginal brackets. This holding cost should be modelled into any bridging or construction loan cash-flow projection.
• —VCAT planning and permit delays. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) hears planning appeals that can add six to twelve months to an entity's development timeline. A Pty Ltd that has acquired a site subject to a planning permit may face an objector appeal that delays the permit grant well beyond the original settlement and drawdown assumptions. Our panel lenders are familiar with VCAT timelines and can structure loan terms with sufficient duration to accommodate a reasonable permit delay, provided the borrower demonstrates a clear planning pathway.
• —Windfall Gains Tax (WGT). Since 1 July 2023, Victoria's Windfall Gains Tax applies to land that receives a rezoning resulting in a value uplift above a specified threshold. Entity borrowers acquiring sites in anticipation of rezoning should be aware that the WGT liability (up to 50 per cent of the value uplift) may crystallise on the landowner at the time of rezoning. This affects feasibility modelling and, in turn, the loan-to-value ratio our panel lenders are willing to extend.

Auction-driven settlement pressure

Melbourne's auction culture is unmatched in Australia. On a typical spring Saturday, more than a thousand properties go under the hammer across metropolitan Melbourne. For entity borrowers, auction purchases require immediate exchange with no finance condition and a ten per cent deposit payable on the day. The standard REIV contract of sale provides for a thirty-day settlement period (though sixty and ninety-day settlements are negotiable on some commercial transactions). The practical consequence is that a Pty Ltd bidding at auction must either have unconditional funding already approved or accept the risk of deposit forfeiture and vendor's damages if finance falls through.

We work with entity borrowers to arrange indicative funding before auction day. Our panel lenders can issue indicative letters of offer within days, subject to valuation and credit assessment, giving the borrower confidence to bid. Where a borrower has already exchanged and faces a tight settlement, a private first mortgage can typically settle within 5–10 business days of the term sheet — including ordering a Melbourne-based valuation, completing credit assessment, issuing loan documentation, and settling electronically via PEXA.

Melbourne scenario — illustrative

Loan products we arrange for Melbourne borrowers

Every loan we arrange is a business-purpose facility to an entity borrower, secured by Australian real property. Our four core product categories for Melbourne and Victorian borrowers are:

• —First Mortgage Loans — registered first mortgages for acquisition, bridging, and refinance across Melbourne's residential investment, commercial, and industrial sectors.
• —Second Mortgage Loans — registered second mortgages behind an existing first mortgage, commonly used by Melbourne entities extracting equity from appreciated inner-ring property to fund new acquisitions or business working capital.
• —Construction Finance (No Presales) — progress-draw construction facilities for Melbourne's townhouse and boutique apartment developers who choose to sell on completion rather than pre-sell off the plan.
• —Renovation & Flip Finance — short-term facilities for entity borrowers acquiring, renovating, and reselling residential or commercial property in Melbourne, particularly California bungalows and period homes in the inner north and eastern suburbs that respond well to structural renovation.

Unsure which structure suits your transaction? View sample deals or start an enquiry and we will match your deal to the right panel lender.

Victorian coverage and panel reach

While our registered office is in Sydney, our panel of lenders and private investors has strong appetite for Victorian security. We maintain relationships with Melbourne-based valuers, solicitors, and settlement agents who handle the on-the-ground execution of every Melbourne transaction. Our panel's geographic appetite extends beyond metropolitan Melbourne to include Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula, the Mornington Peninsula, Ballarat, Bendigo, and the Surf Coast — subject to valuation and credit assessment. Regional Victorian assets with demonstrable market depth and a clear exit strategy are within our panel's comfort zone.

Melbourne's electronic settlement process operates via PEXA, and all mortgage registrations are processed through Land Use Victoria. Our panel solicitors in Melbourne coordinate mortgage registration, verification of identity, and funds-flow management as part of every transaction we arrange.

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Private Credit Loans (operated by Andorra Capital Solutions Pty Ltd)

National service — registered office in Sydney (postal only). We arrange loans for entity borrowers across all Australian states and territories.