“My business makes good money. I want to build wealth outside it.”
Profit sitting in the account is the only asset doing no work.
Strong-profit owners with lazy cash and no asset strategy. The play is commercial property owned outside the trading business, so the rent builds equity for you instead of a landlord. This page is the path: trade better, borrow better, own the asset.
The path
Four steps, in the order that works.
Read the capacity
What the business's numbers actually support, worked the way a credit team works it: capacity, structure, and what a purchase outside the business does to both. The debt and capacity modelling is free for clients of The Lending Lab.
Build the file
The finance documents for the asset, to the standard a lender or your own banker funds from. Over $35m of these transactions were funded by the clients' own banks on documents Nick and his team built.
Buy the asset
Arranged by us and structured for the asset, or funded by your own banker on the file we build. Either way the business keeps trading and the wealth builds on the outside.
The long haul
The Owner's Desk keeps the position current and Covenant Management runs the obligations, both built for the years after settlement. One day the portfolio becomes the retirement income.
What you might need
The products on this path, every fee on the page.
Commercial property outside super
The flagship page: the thesis in full and all five client stories, grouped by door.
The wealth play, end to end
Learn moreThe Owner's Desk
Capacity and covenant headroom kept current after settlement. Free for Lending Lab clients.
From $850 a quarter
Learn moreCovenant Management
The compliance on the new debt, run for you all year.
Scoped and quoted in writing
Learn moreStart free
Free, no email wall, method set out in full. Run the numbers on the asset before anyone runs them for you.
Client stories
Three funded by the clients' own banks, on files we built
Industrial property, Melbourne · 2024
$1m of equity on day one.
$1m of equity before the first rent cheque, on a projected 32.2% IRR.
Read the storyIndustrial and activity centre, metro Melbourne · 2025
A $20m deal, funded by the client's own bank.
Funded by the client's own bank on a projected 181% five-year ROI.
Read the storyIndustrial portfolio, Brisbane · 2024
The file that unlocked a $9.28m portfolio.
Funded by the client's own bank on a rental-reversion story a generalist file would have buried.
Read the storyBefore you read the capacity
The rent you are paying now is the deposit on the building.
If the business rents its premises and you are buying them, that rent stops at settlement. It was a cost in every set of accounts a lender has ever seen from you, and from the day you own the building it is not a cost at all. Put back where it belongs, it is usually the largest single adjustment in the file, and it is created by the purchase rather than dug out of the history.
It has to be evidenced from both sides, the operating accounts and the landlord's rental statements, and the loan that replaces the rent has to be serviced on top of everything else the business already carries. That is the whole exercise.
What the rent is worth in property.
A million dollars over 25 years, principal and interest, costs about $88,700 a year at 7.5%, and about $107,800 at the 9.85% our calculators assess at. A covenant is applied on top. Work backwards from the rent line in your P&L and you have the shape of the answer before anyone opens a file.
The full add-backs picture, and what each one is worth| Tested at | Earnings needed per $1m | $10,000 of earnings buys |
|---|---|---|
| 7.5%, 1.25x cover | $110,800 | $90,000 |
| 7.5%, 1.50x cover | $133,000 | $75,000 |
| 9.85%, 1.25x cover | $134,700 | $74,000 |
| 9.85%, 1.50x cover | $161,700 | $62,000 |
7.5%, 1.25x cover
- Earnings needed per $1m
- $110,800
- $10,000 of earnings buys
- $90,000
7.5%, 1.50x cover
- Earnings needed per $1m
- $133,000
- $10,000 of earnings buys
- $75,000
9.85%, 1.25x cover
- Earnings needed per $1m
- $134,700
- $10,000 of earnings buys
- $74,000
9.85%, 1.50x cover
- Earnings needed per $1m
- $161,700
- $10,000 of earnings buys
- $62,000
Assessment rates, terms, covenants and lender policy vary by deal. These figures illustrate the relationship between earnings and capacity. They are not a quote, a credit assessment or an offer of finance.
Two ways this can work.
Referred to us for finance? You are in the right place either way. Either we arrange it, or we prepare the file for whoever does.
Have us arrange the finance
We build the analysis, write the submission and take it to the lenders who will actually do the deal, across 40+ of them. One team from the first set of figures to settlement, and one team holding the covenants after it.
Start a finance enquiryAlready have a broker or a banker you trust?
Keep them. We will build the file to the standard a credit team expects and work directly with whoever lodges it. Same models, same documents, same standards, and we do not take the lodgement on that engagement.
See the finance documentsWant a straight read on your deal?
Book a free call with Nick. Bring the numbers you have, and we will tell you the right service level and the fixed fee. No obligation.