An SMSF mortgage broker who starts with the constraints

Who this is for

Your fund already exists, your adviser has recommended a property purchase inside it, and you need someone who knows which lenders still write these loans and on what terms. Or your accountant has raised the idea and you want the lending reality before anyone gets excited about the strategy.

Either way, the fund comes first and the loan comes second.

How the process works

1. We confirm the fund is ready. Trust deed, corporate trustee, investment strategy and the bare trust arrangement all need to be in place first. No lender will look at the application before that. Your accountant usually leads this part.
2. We map the lender field. Fewer lenders write SMSF loans than write ordinary ones. Their rules on deposit, liquidity and property type vary sharply, so we check current policy rather than last year's.
3. We work with your advisers. Your accountant and licensed adviser own the strategy, and we build the lending to fit what they have already recommended.
4. We manage the application. Including the extra document set these loans require. It runs meaningfully larger than a standard purchase. Expect the timeline to reflect that.

What a broker does that a bank doesn’t

Most bank branches will not touch an SMSF purchase at all, and the ones that do apply their own rules on minimum fund balances, liquidity after settlement and which properties qualify. We know which lenders are currently active in this space and what each requires before an application is lodged, which matters more here than in any other kind of lending.

We are credit specialists, not financial advisers. We do not tell you whether an SMSF should buy property. Anyone who does that without a licence is doing something they should not.

What a limited recourse borrowing arrangement actually is

Borrowing inside a fund runs through a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, and the structure is deliberately restrictive. The ASIC Moneysmart guidance puts it plainly: an SMSF can only purchase a single asset under this type of arrangement, such as one residential or commercial property. The property sits in a separate holding trust. The lender’s recourse is limited to that asset rather than to the rest of the fund.

That single-asset rule is why the paperwork runs heavier than a standard purchase and why the sequence matters so much. Get the trust or the loan documents wrong at the start and, in Moneysmart’s words, you may not be able to alter them or easily unwind the arrangement, so you may have to sell the property instead, and selling under duress inside super is an expensive way to learn that lesson.

The costs nobody mentions in the seminar

SMSF loans price higher than ordinary home loans, and the gap is not small. Moneysmart notes these loans often carry higher interest rates and fees, on top of higher ongoing administration costs for accounting and auditing. Lenders also want a larger deposit than they would on a personal purchase, plus enough liquidity left in the fund afterwards to cover repayments through a vacancy.

Tax losses cannot be offset against income outside the fund either, and the property’s character cannot be changed until the loan is repaid, so a renovation strategy and an SMSF purchase rarely belong in the same sentence. Duty still applies as normal. Super does not exempt you. On a hypothetical $750,000 purchase, an invented round number rather than a quote, transfer duty runs to $27,937 under the 2026-27 Revenue NSW brackets in our stamp duty calculator.

Where we stop

Here is the line, and we hold it firmly. We do not advise on whether borrowing suits your fund, your retirement timeline or your risk appetite, because that is licensed financial advice and we are not licensed to give it. Moneysmart itself recommends getting advice from a registered financial adviser to understand the risks involved, and we say the same to every enquiry that arrives without one.

What we will do is tell you honestly whether the lending is achievable before you spend money on structures. Sometimes the answer is that the fund balance is too small, the liquidity buffer too thin, or the property type outside what any current lender accepts, and hearing that early saves thousands in setup costs. We would rather lose the deal. A fund locked into an arrangement it cannot service is a worse outcome for everyone than an honest no at the start.