The Big Holiday Park Funding Map: Buy, Hold, Expand
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Accommodation Finance
Holiday Park Finance · Freehold · Capital Stack
The Big Holiday Park Funding Map: Buy, Hold, Expand
Buying a big freehold holiday park is not one loan, it is a stack. The funding splits across three moves, buy, hold and expand, and each leg suits a different lender. Here is the map for a resort-scale freehold park.
Quick Answer
Buying a big freehold holiday park is not one loan, it is a stack. The park funding map runs across three moves, buy, hold and expand, with the going concern as the asset under each one. Start from the accommodation finance hub and match every leg to its lender.
Freehold or leasehold sets the whole map
Freehold gears highest, so the first fork in the park funding map is whether you are buying the freehold or only the leasehold business. A freehold park means the land, the buildings and the trade transfer together as one going concern, so a lender can take the property as security and gear against it. A leasehold park is the business sitting inside someone else's lease, with no real property to secure, so the funding sits inside the term the lease has left and gears lower to match.
When a credit team opens a big freehold park file, the first thing it reads is the tenure and the permanent versus tourist site mix, not the asking price, because those two facts decide how steady the income is. That is the whole reason freehold versus leasehold is the question to settle before you talk numbers. A resort-scale freehold park with a solid base of permanent sites is the most fundable shape in the lane, and our going concern explainer sets out how a business sold as a trading whole is read.
Buying: funding the going concern
Buying a large freehold park is funded on the going-concern valuation, not the asking price, so the number that sizes the loan is the sustainable earnings, then the land. A valuer signs off the adjusted net profit times a yield multiple, illustrative and varies by lender, and the freehold is valued underneath it, which is why a park gears higher than a leasehold business but still asks for a real deposit. As a working guide the deposit lands around a third of the price, indicative and varies by lender, with caravan park finance structured against the trade and the tenure.
Where the deposit is short, supporting security bridges the gap rather than a bigger headline loan, so equity in another property can sit alongside the deal to lift gearing closer to the full price. A buyer holding part of the park purely as a passive parcel reads differently again, closer to a commercial property loan on the land. Because the structure blends land and trade, it is specialist and non-bank funders that lead here, not the major banks.
Holding: the freehold leg and releasing equity
Once you own the freehold, holding it means an owner-occupier commercial property loan over the land that you can refinance and draw equity from later. The bricks gear like property because there is a title behind them, so a settled, trading park gives you a base to refinance onto better terms as the income matures. That is the quiet advantage of owning the freehold rather than leasing it: the equity you build is yours to release.
Holding is also where an exit gets planned long before it happens. An owner weighing a staged handover, a sale or a lease-back can keep the freehold and let an operator run the trade, which our accommodation succession map works through. The freehold is what makes those choices possible, because it can be sold, kept or financed separately from the business.
Expanding: staged development on land you already own
Expanding a park you already own is a development question, not a term-loan one, because adding cabins, powered sites or an amenities block changes the asset rather than just maintaining it. Development finance releases money in stages against the build, even with no presales and no separate titles to sell, and it is sized on an as-is and an on-completion valuation. The same staged, progress-draw structure that funds new keys on a trading motel is set out in our guide to financing new cabins before 30 June.
This is the top of the capital stack, where senior funding, your own equity and any supporting security are sequenced so the build is fully funded before a spade goes in the ground. The parks I see fund cleanly are the ones where the whole stack was mapped before the contract went unconditional, not assembled stage by stage as costs land. A short-term need on timing is a job for leasehold-style business funding only where there is no freehold to lean on; on a freehold park the staged facility carries the build.
Across all three moves the deadline reads the same way: a big park acquisition or expansion is FY27 planning, not a 30 June asset rush. The instant asset write-off touches cabin fit-out and equipment, not the freehold or the build itself, and the announced changes from 1 July 2027, the new capital gains method and the reintroduced loss carry back, are planning inputs to raise early with an accountant. They are announced, not yet law, and the detail sits with the Treasury; for the EOFY-settlement view, our accommodation finance deadline guide maps what can still settle in time.
A resort-scale freehold park is funded as a stack, not a single loan: the going-concern valuation sizes the buy, an owner-occupier commercial property loan holds the freehold and frees equity, and staged development finance funds the expansion. Freehold gears highest and gives you the room to refinance and grow, which is why the freehold versus leasehold question sits at the top of the map. Because the structure blends land and trade, specialist and non-bank funders lead, and the deadline is FY27 planning rather than a 30 June rush.
Key takeaway: map the whole stack, buy, hold and expand, before the contract goes unconditional, then match each leg to the lender built for it.Frequently Asked Questions
A freehold holiday park is easier to finance than a leasehold one, because the buyer owns the land, the buildings and the trade as a single going concern that a lender can take as security and gear against. A leasehold park is the business inside someone else's lease, with no real property to secure, so it gears lower and funds through a business loan or private lending. The freehold also gives you room to refinance and release equity later, which the leasehold does not.
The deposit to buy a large freehold holiday park usually sits around a third of the price, indicative and varies by lender, because the deal is sized on the going-concern valuation rather than the asking price. Equity in another property can sit alongside the purchase as supporting security to bridge the gap. A caravan park finance broker can model the real deposit once a valuer reads the trading numbers.
Lenders value a holiday park on its going-concern valuation, the sustainable adjusted net profit times a yield multiple, not the headline asking price. A valuer reads the permanent versus tourist site mix, the occupancy and the lease tenure before the land is priced, because the income is the part being bought. Our going concern explainer walks through how a business sold as a trading whole is assessed.
Financing an expansion on a park you already own is a development finance question, because adding cabins, powered sites or an amenities block changes the asset rather than just maintaining it. The facility is released in stages against the build, even with no presales and no separate titles to sell, and it is sized on an as-is and an on-completion valuation. The same staged, progress-draw structure is set out in our guide to financing new cabins on a trading motel.
Specialist and non-bank funders finance most large holiday parks, because the major banks treat the blended land-and-trade structure cautiously. They size the facility on the going-concern valuation, the site mix and the tenure rather than running a standard servicing calculator and stopping at the land. A commercial property loan over the freehold usually does the heavy lifting, with the wider routes mapped on the accommodation finance hub.
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