FY27 Accommodation Buy: How Ready Are You?
Accommodation Finance: Buyer Readiness | Switchboard Finance
Accommodation Finance
Accommodation Finance · Buyer Readiness · FY27
FY27 Accommodation Buy: How Ready Are You?
Most buyers ask how much deposit they need. Lenders ask a different question first: how ready you are. Your deposit and supporting security position, your trade record, and how the business will be held place you in a readiness tier, and that tier sets what you can borrow on an FY27 going concern.
Quick Answer
On an accommodation purchase, buyer readiness sets what you can borrow, ahead of the asking price. The going concern read does the work; your deposit, trade record and structure place you in a tier. The accommodation finance hub maps each one.
Readiness is the real gate
What gates an FY27 accommodation purchase is how ready you are to buy, more than the size of your deposit. A motel, pub or caravan park is funded as a going concern, so the going-concern read sets what you can borrow, and your readiness is what decides whether you can act on a deal or only watch it go past.
Readiness comes down to three things a lender weighs together: your deposit and supporting security position, a transferable trade record, and how the business will be held. In practice, the buyers who move cleanly into the new financial year are the ones who know which of those they already have and which they still need to build, long before a property appears. The accommodation finance hub sits across motels, pubs and parks, and the same readiness test holds in every lane.
Buyer readiness, tier by tier
Buyer readiness sorts into three broad tiers, and naming yours tells you what to line up before you offer. Each tier is a read on the same question: how much of the going-concern price you can cover between a senior loan, your deposit and any supporting security.
Tier one, ready to buy now. You hold a clear deposit or usable equity, a clean and transferable trade record sits behind the asset, and the business will be held in a structure you have already set. A buyer here can move on a freehold going concern quickly, because the file answers a lender's questions before they are asked.
Tier two, close with the right structure. The equity is there but tied up, or the holding structure is not settled yet. This is the most common position, and it is rarely a flat no. A vendor carry sitting behind the senior loan, or added supporting security, can close the gap once the deposit is modelled against a realistic going-concern valuation rather than the asking price.
Tier three, building the position. The deposit is thin, there is no trade record to lean on yet, or the structure question has not been asked. The work here is to assemble your deposit and supporting security position and the trade evidence first, so a later application reads cleanly instead of being declined early.
Freehold going concern versus a leasehold entry
Tenure shifts which tier you are in, because a freehold going concern versus a leasehold entry changes what a lender can secure against and how high the deal gears. Own the freehold and a lender reads the land, the buildings and the trade as one going concern, which brings a commercial property loan into the deal and gears the strongest of the tenures, indicatively around 60 to 70 percent of the going-concern valuation, varies by lender. Take a leasehold and there is no land title to mortgage, so funding leans on the business and is capped inside the remaining lease term.
Either way, supporting security can lift the deal toward the full price with supporting security, indicative and varies by lender. A freehold pub with gaming reads differently again from a no-gaming motel, which is why lender appetite varies so much across the sector. Accommodation sits inside a large and growing part of the tourism economy, the backdrop the ABS sets out in its Tourism Satellite Account, and a market that broad is never served by one lender's single policy.
Moving up a tier before FY27
Moving up a readiness tier before you buy is mostly preparation, not capital. The first move is to model the deposit against a realistic going-concern valuation rather than the asking price, because that is the number a lender actually advances against. The second is to set the holding structure early, since how a going concern is held interacts with lender policy and with the Budget changes announced for the new financial year.
Those Budget measures are announced, not yet law, so treat them as planning inputs rather than deadlines. The instant asset write-off has been announced to become permanent from 1 July 2026 for smaller businesses, while a minimum tax on discretionary trusts from 1 July 2028 and capital gains changes from 1 July 2027 sit further out; because accommodation letting and operating entities often sit in trusts, they are worth raising with your accountant well before you offer. The end of the financial year is now a strategy window, not a settle-by date. In practice, the buyers who land cleanly fixed the deposit, the trade evidence and the structure first, then let the right deal find a ready file. The owner's own One Doc home loan is a separate step that reads more cleanly once the new structure has settled, and you can check your eligibility or start a conversation to map your tier first.
An FY27 accommodation purchase turns on readiness, not the asking price. A motel, pub or park is funded as a going concern, so the valuation sets what you can borrow, and your deposit and supporting security position, your trade record and your holding structure decide which tier you sit in. Tier one can move now; tier two closes the gap with a vendor carry or supporting security; tier three builds the position first. Tenure and the announced Budget changes layer on top, but the order of work does not change.
Key takeaway: work out your readiness tier first, because the going-concern read, not the asking price, sets what you can borrow in FY27.Frequently Asked Questions
The deposit you really need to buy an accommodation business is set against the going-concern valuation, not the asking price, so it is usually smaller than the headline figure makes it look. On a freehold going concern geared indicatively around 60 to 70 percent of that valuation, varies by lender, your deposit and any supporting security cover the rest. A realistic valuation read early is what tells you the true number, so it is worth modelling it on the going concern valuation before you sign.
Being ready to buy a motel or pub in FY27 comes down to three things a lender weighs together: your deposit and supporting security position, a transferable trade record, and a holding structure set before you offer. The stronger those three are, the higher the readiness tier you sit in and the faster a deal can move. The accommodation finance hub maps how each one feeds the borrowing.
A strong, transferable trading record matters because lenders size an accommodation loan on the going concern, the business and its income valued as a whole, not the building alone. A clean record that does not depend on the current owner being behind the desk supports a higher valuation and a larger loan. Our going concern explainer walks through how that read is built.
Whether a freehold or a leasehold is easier to finance depends on tenure rather than which is better. A freehold going concern gears on the whole asset and brings a commercial property loan into the deal, while a leasehold has no land to mortgage and is capped by the remaining lease term. The freehold path gears higher but needs a larger deposit base to match.
Sorting the business structure before buying an accommodation venue is worth doing early, because how a going concern is held interacts with lender policy and with the Budget changes announced for the new financial year. A minimum tax on discretionary trusts from 1 July 2028 and capital gains changes from 1 July 2027 are announced but not yet law, and accommodation entities often sit in trusts, so raise them with your accountant before you offer. The commercial property loan side of the deal is easier to structure once that decision is made.
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