The deposit you were quoted was set by what a bank can secure. Not by what you can afford.

Published guidance puts it at 30–50% of the purchase price, because most lenders cap LVR at 50–70% against goodwill. That is accurate for an unstructured deal. Where a buyer holds property and the security is positioned properly, we fund up to 100% on business and commercial transactions. Subject to lender criteria, security position and eligibility.

Sometimes, where you hold sufficient equity elsewhere and the business supports servicing. It is not the norm, and we will tell you in the first conversation whether it is realistic for you rather than after you have spent money finding out.

Generally not, or not much. That is the entire reason deposit expectations are high. The work is finding security a lender will accept without you writing a cheque for the difference.

The business you are buying needs the history: two to three years of the vendor’s financials, whatever the loan type, because that is what the price and the debt are tested against. It is your own income that can be short. On property-secured lending, one year’s financials are accepted to 80% of value by more than one lender on our panel, and six months of BAS or business bank statements, or an accountant’s letter, carries an alt-doc file. Two years is the standard policy line; it is not the law, and a file that makes the case properly is read on its merits. Checked September 2026; subject to lender assessment.

No. A profitable business with two years of clean financials, the deposit in hand and a lease that outlasts the loan is a straightforward file, and it is welcome: placed with the lender that fits it and settled in three to four weeks once documents are complete. A multi-entity acquisition with vendor finance, a freehold funded alongside or a price that needs testing before you offer is the complex version of the same work. Both get the same reader, the same process and the same fee model, quoted at step four and refunded in full if the offer set out in your Action Plan is not secured.

Usually yes, and around half of Australian small business credit is secured against residential property. How it is structured matters enormously: done carelessly it ties your home to the business permanently and caps everything you do afterwards.

Two answers, because they measure different things. The finance, once your documents are complete: three to four weeks to settlement. The whole transaction, from first enquiry: six to fourteen weeks. The vendor’s timeline and due diligence usually set that pace, not the lender. Four things stretch the finance beyond three to four weeks: documents and information that arrive incomplete; due diligence still running; the individual lender’s service levels at the time of lodgement, which can add around two weeks on their own; and, where residential or commercial property is brought across as part of the structure, a slow discharge from the outgoing lender. Files we have engineered have reached unconditional approval in 36 and 48 hours. The single biggest thing you control is telling the broker everything early, so the file is built once rather than rebuilt.

Prevail Finance will tell you. It is the most valuable thing we do, and it is why our due diligence runs before our funding.

Prevail Finance focuses on automotive, manufacturing, building and construction, engineering, transport and professional practices, sectors that are asset-backed, which is what makes a high-LVR structure achievable. Nine sectors have their own guide on this site: buying an accounting practice, buying a bakery or cake shop, buying a mechanical workshop, buying a pharmacy, buying a café, buying an insurance brokerage, buying a motel, buying a promotional products business and medical, dental and veterinary practice finance. In food retail and hospitality we generally need a freehold or a substantial asset position in the deal.

Accounting and financial planning practices in Australia are lent against at up to 3.75 times adjusted EBITDA through a specialist desk on our panel, where the practice has recurring revenue of $1.5 million or more and at least two qualified accountants or advisers. Interest-only runs for the whole term at 2.5 times or less, and for two years above that. The desk values the practice on its recurring fees and earnings, so the buyer’s home stays out of the security. The purchase price is usually set on a different basis, 0.8 to 1.4 times gross recurring fees for smaller books or 3 to 5 times EBIT for larger firms, as our accounting practice guide sets out, and the gap between the lending multiple and the price multiple is the deposit, or the case for additional security. A major bank on our panel goes to 100% of the price with no property taken where the total debt stays inside three times earnings. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Legal practices in Australia are lent against at up to 2.5 times adjusted EBITDA, capped at $1 million per partner for a two-partner firm and $2 million per partner from three partners, through a specialist desk on our panel that reads revenue by practice area and by partner, with aged debtors and work in progress. A sole practitioner is not excluded, but property security will be required. Interest-only is available for the whole term at 1.5 times or less. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Medical practices in Australia, meaning GP-centred medical centres, diagnostic businesses and day hospitals, are lent against at up to 3.5 times adjusted EBITDA or 70% of an external valuation; dental and veterinary practices at up to 3 times or 70%. The desk on our panel that writes them looks for revenue of $2.5 million and commercial debt of $1 million or more, and for large or multi-site practices in metropolitan locations. The practice premises, bought alongside, go to 80% of value where they are held as security, and specialists and surgeons can borrow up to $1 million more, GPs up to $250,000 more, assessed on their own personal-exertion income. Smaller practices are funded on the general business route. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Insurance brokerages in Australia are lent against on their recurring revenue. With recurring revenue between $500,000 and $1 million, the book is lent against at up to 60% of the value the lender’s own multiplier puts on it, amortising; above $1 million of recurring revenue, at up to 4 times adjusted EBITDA, amortising, with interest-only for the whole term at 3 times or less. Two directors are preferred; a single director is assessed for key-person risk rather than declined. The file carries revenue split by fee, commission and premium funding, gross written premium by class and underwriter, the top ten clients and the latest trust account audit. Our insurance brokerage guide covers what the book is actually worth before a lender prices it. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Rent rolls in Australia are lent against at up to 70% of the value a lender’s own multiplier puts on them, amortising to 60% within five years, through a specialist desk on our panel. The trust account audit has to be clean, and servicing is tested on a fall in the variable income, sales commission, not on the good year. Interest-only runs for the whole term at 60% or less. The rent roll statistics come straight from the property management software, so the file is built on the roll’s own numbers: managements, average weekly rent, arrears and churn. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Strata management businesses in Australia are lent against at up to 70% of the strata roll’s value where fewer than 5,000 lots are under management, or up to 4.5 times adjusted EBITDA from 5,000 lots, through a specialist desk on our panel; Western Australian strata managers are assessed on roll value regardless of size. No single building can contribute more than 10% of revenue, and the roll is valued on recurring base management fees, with insurance commission and other income read separately. Interest-only is available for the whole term. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Built-environment firms in Australia, engineers, architects, planners, surveyors and the service businesses around them, are lent against at up to 2 times adjusted EBITDA, subject to turnover, through a specialist desk on our panel. The file is read on aged debtors, income by discipline, the top ten clients and the forward order book, because a consultancy’s earnings are only as durable as its pipeline. Interest-only runs for the whole term at 1.5 times or less. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

IT services and consulting businesses in Australia are lent against at up to 2 times adjusted EBITDA where revenue is under $30 million and 3 times from $30 million; software-as-a-service businesses at up to 3 times. The desk on our panel that writes them is built for businesses with revenue typically above $5 million: managed hosting and infrastructure, end-user computing, telephony, managed security, integrated hardware and software, and the professional services around them. Revenue is split by service type, and the top ten clients are read for concentration. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Business acquisition loans in Australia below $1 million sit outside the specialist practice desks, which are written for loans of about $1 million and above, and inside the general business lending we arrange on cash flow and security. The lenders that do this well read a file in that order: the character and capability of the people, the cash flow of the business, the capital the buyer is putting in, and only then the collateral the deal actually needs, and we build the file the way they read it. Where the buyer holds property, the structure can take the purchase to 100% of the price. Below $400,000 in total transaction size the structuring fee rarely earns its keep, and we say so on the first call. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Business purchases in Australia with a hard settlement date have two routes. A bank file, once documents are complete, typically reaches settlement in three to four weeks, and files we have engineered have gone unconditional in 36 and 48 hours. Where the date is closer than the bank process, private credit secured on property, from $25,000 to $15 million at up to 70% LVR on terms of one to 36 months, can be conditionally approved the same day and settled inside a week on a clean file, then refinanced to the bank once the pressure is off. It is priced for speed, so it is a bridge, not a home. Checked September 2026; subject to the lender’s assessment.

Rarely as your own contribution, usually as support behind the loan. A lender reads vendor finance as the seller’s confidence in their own numbers and will normally let it sit behind the bank’s facility on deferred terms, with no repayments that squeeze the cover during the loan’s early years. What it will not do is treat the vendor’s loan as equity you have put in: the contribution test is met with cash, property equity or both. Where a vendor is offering terms, the structure of that loan (term, rate, security, what happens if you miss a payment) is negotiated before contracts, because a badly drafted vendor loan can cost you the bank facility it was meant to help.

On the business’s earnings, rebuilt the way a credit assessor rebuilds them: the advertised profit less a market wage for whoever will run it, the rent you will actually pay, the equipment already due and the one-offs that recur. Your own income enters the file in two ways. If you keep your job and the business can be run by a paid manager, your PAYG income can support the servicing; if you will run the business, the lender wants to know what you are giving up and whether the rebuilt profit pays you and the loan. The rebuild calculator on this page runs the same sum on any listing, with every adjustment yours to edit.

The ones with evidence behind them. An owner’s wage above market, a documented one-off (a legal dispute, a flood, a relocation), interest on debt that will not carry across, depreciation on equipment that is not being replaced: those are accepted with the paperwork. Add-backs that do not survive are the ones that recur: a “one-off” that appears in every year of the financials is an expense with a nickname, and private expenses run through the business without a paper trail are struck rather than haircut. Ask the agent for the earnings with and without the add-backs. The gap between them is where most price disputes live.

Yes, and the lender will ask four things before it prices the deal: whether you or your co-buyer have run a business before; what hand-over, mentoring or revenue-sharing arrangement the vendor will commit to and for how long; what each of you has been earning as an employee; and a plan with forecasts that shows the business sustaining you from settlement. A bank on our panel asked exactly those questions on a September 2026 file before it would price it. Industry experience in the same trade, a vendor who stays for a defined transition and a manager already in place each move a first-time file from a maybe to a yes.

In one transaction, on two facilities. The premises are lent against as property, inside the published commercial band of 65 to 80% of value with owner-occupiers at the top of it, or to 80% of value over a term of up to 30 years where residential security is used, and the business is lent against on its rebuilt earnings and the security behind it. Bundling both into one facility reads to a lender as a goodwill loan with a building attached and is priced as the riskiest part of itself; split, each facility is read cleanly and the property loan does not carry the business’s rate. The freehold alongside the business is one of the two places the deposit gap closes, because the building gives the lender the security the goodwill cannot. See buying your business premises.

Two different questions with two different answers. Where a company or a trust borrows, the directors or trustees stand as guarantors: that is standard on every business acquisition in Australia and is not negotiable at this size. Whether your home is taken as security is negotiable, and it is the decision that matters. Around half of Australian small business credit is secured against residential property, on Reserve Bank data; whether yours is depends on the sector, the earnings and the structure. Professional practices can be lent to 100% of the price with no property taken; a trading business under $400,000 with no property behind it usually cannot be. We tell you which side you are on in the first seven minutes.

For the business you are buying: two to three years of the vendor’s financials and tax returns, the last four BAS, an aged debtors and creditors list, the lease with its options, the information memorandum, the contract of sale and the stock and equipment list at valuation. For you: identification, your own tax returns or payslips, a statement of assets and liabilities, evidence of the deposit and, for a company or trust, the constitution or deed. The file is read in that order, business first, so the vendor’s pack decides the timetable. A complete pack is read once and comes back with room to negotiate; a partial one is read twice, and doubt attaches to it.

The lender lends against its valuer’s number, not the contract price, and the gap is yours to fill or to negotiate away. Two valuation bases are in play. A going-concern basis values the business and its premises together on the income they produce, which is how motels and similar accommodation businesses are funded. A vacant-possession basis values the property as if the business were not there and lends against that, which is how many lenders treat a shop or a workshop where the goodwill is thin and the building carries the value. Which basis the lender applies decides the loan, so we test it before you exchange, and a low valuation is challenged with a second one rather than accepted as final.