Accommodation Finance: Broker or Straight to a Lender?
Accommodation Broker or Go Direct? | Switchboard Finance
Accommodation Finance
Accommodation Finance · Broker · Going Concern
Accommodation Finance: Broker or Straight to a Lender?
A motel, pub or caravan park is a specialised going-concern asset, and most lenders can only tell you what they will do, not what the market will. Here is what a broker does that going straight to one lender cannot, and when each route is the right call.
Quick Answer
Accommodation finance funds a motel, pub or caravan park, and most of it is full-financials going concern lending. Going direct to one lender gives one answer; a broker with whole-of-market access weighs many against a specialised asset. The right route depends on the deal.
Do you need a broker, or can you go straight to a lender?
You can go straight to a lender for accommodation finance, and plenty of buyers do. The catch is that a motel, pub or caravan park is a specialised going-concern asset, and any single lender can only tell you what it will do, not what the market will do. One lender gives one answer. Go direct, and you are really asking one credit team whether your deal fits the box it happens to run.
That is a narrow question to ask about a broad market. Accommodation finance is not a single product. It is full-financials going-concern lending that spans owner-occupier commercial property loans on a freehold, business and goodwill funding, vendor finance, and the specialist tiers that pick up a deal a bank steps away from. A buyer who knocks on one door cannot see which of those a different lender would have offered. From the underwriter's seat, the deals that struggle are rarely weak; they are usually pointed at the wrong lender.
What a broker does that going direct cannot
What a broker does that going direct cannot is compare the whole market at once, then shape the deal before any lender sees it. Going to one lender returns one verdict on one set of policies; whole-of-market access turns the same deal into a question put to many. The table is the quick read, and the point underneath it matters more than any single row.
The thread running through the table is preparation. A broker reads where a deal sits, then it is structured before it is submitted, so the freehold leg goes to a lender comfortable with going-concern security and the business leg is arranged around it. Going direct is not wrong, but it asks you to present the deal as you understand it to the one lender you happen to choose, and to take that lender's policy as the market's answer.
Why a specialised asset changes the math
A specialised going-concern asset changes the math because a lender is not really lending against a building; it is lending against a business that happens to own one. A valuer prices a going concern on its sustainable trading performance, so the figure a lender will advance is set by that valuation, not the asking price, and the deposit is smaller than the price makes it look only where the valuation supports it. A freehold pub with gaming reads differently again from a no-gaming motel or a leasehold park, and not every lender is comfortable with each.
The sector is large enough that lender appetite genuinely varies across it. Tourism contributed about $81.1 billion to the economy in 2024-25 and supported around 696,000 filled jobs, up 2.0 percent, with the accommodation industry driving that jobs rise as new hotels opened, according to the ABS Tourism Satellite Account for 2024-25. A market that broad is not served by one lender's single policy, which is the practical case for comparing several. For how the asset is valued, our going concern explainer walks through it, and a pub with gaming shows how much one feature can move the read.
When going direct is fine, and when the broker route is the move
Going direct is fine when the deal is straightforward and you already have a lender that knows you. If you run a profitable freehold motel, hold a clean record, and your own bank understands the asset, one good answer may be all you need. The broker route is the move when any part of the deal is non-standard: a specialised security, a going-concern valuation that lands under the asking price, a bank that has already wavered, or a structure that needs a vendor carry or a specialist tier behind the senior loan.
From the underwriter's seat, a clean, vanilla deal rarely needs a broker to get over the line; a specialised or wavering one almost always benefits from more than one read. The honest test is not how big the loan is, it is how many lenders would say yes to it as it stands. If the answer is most of them, go direct. If it is only the right one, that is exactly the deal whole-of-market access is built for. You can check your eligibility or start a conversation to map the lenders first.
A motel, pub or caravan park is a specialised going-concern asset, and going straight to one lender answers only what that lender will do. A broker with whole-of-market access asks the wider question, structures the deal before it is submitted, and keeps a specialist tier in reserve if a bank steps back. Going direct can be fine on a clean, vanilla deal; the broker route earns its place when the asset, the valuation or the structure is anything but standard.
Key takeaway: on a specialised going-concern deal, a broker turns one lender's single answer into a whole market's worth of options.Frequently Asked Questions
Accommodation finance is the funding behind a motel, pub, caravan park or similar operating business, and most of it is full-financials going concern lending rather than a low-doc product. You do not strictly need a broker, but because the asset is specialised, a broker with whole-of-market access can weigh many lenders against the deal instead of one. The wider picture sits on the Accommodation Finance Hub.
Going straight to a bank for a motel or pub loan is not automatically cheaper, because the rate you are offered is only one lender's answer on a specialised going-concern asset. A broker can compare what several lenders, including private lending and non-bank specialists, would price the same deal at, and competing offers can sharpen the terms. The cheapest first quote is not always the cheapest deal once structure and security are weighed.
A broker can often arrange finance after a bank declines an accommodation deal, because a single bank decline reflects that lender's credit appetite, not the whole market. Where a deal sits outside bank policy, a specialist tier may still fund it on security, equity and a clear exit strategy. A broker routes the deal to the lenders most likely to read it, rather than treating one no as the end.
A finance broker on an accommodation loan is usually paid a commission by the lender on settlement rather than a fee by you, though any arrangement should be disclosed up front, so ask your broker before you proceed. What you are buying is access to many lenders across the accommodation finance market and a deal structured before it is submitted, not just an introduction. Confirm the fee structure in writing as part of choosing a broker.
A broker can arrange finance for a leasehold accommodation business, though a leasehold deal reads differently from a freehold one because there is no land title to mortgage and the loan is capped by the remaining lease term. Lenders that are comfortable with leasehold going concerns are a smaller group, which is exactly where whole-of-market access helps. Compare the two ownership paths on the going concern explainer.
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