INVESTMENT LENDING
The Investment Lending Landscape Has Shifted
Recent legislative and regulatory change has prompted a lot of investors to pause and reconsider their approach. Questions about which ownership structure makes sense, how lenders assess different entity types, and what the right next move looks like are coming up in almost every conversation we are having with investors right now.
If you are feeling uncertain, that is worth exploring rather than ignoring. The investors who come out ahead through periods of change are generally the ones who reassess early and adjust their strategy before they are forced to.
This is also where your accountant becomes a critical part of the conversation. Lending structure and your broader financial strategy are not separate discussions. We are used to working alongside accountants and we actively encourage it.
Why Structure Matters More Than Rate
Most investors spend a lot of time focused on the interest rate on their investment loan. Rate matters. But the structure the asset is held in will have a far greater impact on your overall outcome than a small difference in rate.
The wrong structure can limit your ability to borrow for the next property, expose assets to unnecessary risk, and complicate your planning down the track. Getting it right from the start -- or restructuring at the right time -- is where the real value sits.
We are brokers, not accountants. We will not give you financial advice. But we know enough about how these structures interact with lending to ask the right questions and make sure the loan we recommend actually works within your broader strategy.
Bring Your Accountant Into the Room
The best outcomes we see with investment clients come from investors who have their broker and accountant talking to each other. Not operating separately and hoping the advice lines up.
If you do not have an accountant who specialises in property investment, we can point you toward people we trust. If you do, bring them into the conversation. We work better that way.
““Property investment is a long game. The decisions you make about structure today will still be working for — or against — you a decade from now.””
Who We Work With
Our investment clients range from people buying their first investment property to experienced investors reassessing their structure in light of legislative change. Some are business owners looking seriously at company and trust structures for the first time. Others are exploring SMSF as the next step in their portfolio. We also work with clients refinancing existing investment lending.
What they have in common is that they are thinking beyond the next purchase. They want to build something that lasts.
Investment Lending Has Changed. Your Strategy Should Too.
Property investment in Australia has always required strategy. But the landscape investors are navigating today looks meaningfully different to the one that existed even a few years ago. Legislative change, tax reform, and shifting lending conditions have added layers of complexity that make the old approach — buy a property in your name, claim the deductions, repeat — feel increasingly limited.
That complexity is not a reason to stop investing. It is a reason to invest more deliberately.
At The Broker Society, we work with investors at every stage from the first investment property to multi-asset portfolios structured across trusts, companies, and self-managed super funds. We do not just find you a loan. We sit down with you, understand what you are building, and make sure the structure you borrow in actually serves your long-term goals.
Four Ways to Structure Investment Property Lending
There is no single right answer for how to hold investment property. The right structure depends on your situation, your goals, and where you are headed. Here is an honest overview of the four main approaches we work with.
1. Personal Name -- The Traditional Approach
Purchasing in your own name is the most straightforward structure and the most accessible from a lending perspective. Lenders know how to assess it, the application process is simpler, and for many investors buying their first one or two properties it is entirely appropriate.
As a portfolio grows, the personal name structure can start to feel limiting. Asset protection, borrowing capacity, and long-term planning all become considerations that push investors toward thinking about alternatives. Your accountant is the right person to help you work out when that conversation is worth having.
2. Family Trust -- Flexibility and Asset Protection
A discretionary family trust gives you flexibility in how income is managed across the trust's beneficiaries. Assets held in a trust also sit outside your personal estate, which provides a layer of protection that appeals to investors building larger portfolios.
Trusts come with setup and ongoing compliance costs, and not all lenders will lend to them. Borrowing capacity is also assessed differently inside a trust structure. This is not something to set up without proper legal and accounting advice running alongside the lending conversation -- and it is a structure we are experienced in working through with your advisers.
3. Company Structure and Special Purpose Vehicles
A Special Purpose Vehicle -- or SPV -- is a company created specifically to hold a single investment asset. It is a structure used by investors who want to ring-fence individual properties, limit liability between assets, and create a clean separation between their investment portfolio and their personal finances.
Lenders assess company borrowing differently to personal borrowing, and the structure has its own set of rules around serviceability and security. The lending conversation and the accounting conversation need to happen at the same time with this one. Your accountant needs to be across it from the start.
If you are building deliberately -- creating separate entities for separate assets and thinking several moves ahead -- we want to be part of that conversation early.
4. SMSF Lending -- Investing Inside Your Super
For investors with sufficient superannuation balances and a long horizon, purchasing property inside a Self-Managed Super Fund through a Limited Recourse Borrowing Arrangement is a well-established strategy with its own set of structural advantages.
With over twenty years of SMSF lending experience, this is a structure we know well. We have a dedicated page that covers it in full -- and we are happy to walk you through whether it suits your fund's position.
Let's Talk About What You Are Building
Tell us your situation and your goals. We will give you an honest view of your options and your next step. If your accountant wants to be part of that conversation, bring them.