ORDE Financial has widened the locations where it will lend up to an 80% loan-to-value ratio (LVR) on eligible commercial and self-managed super fund (SMSF) commercial property. It announced the change on 28 September 2026, covering selected areas in ten markets.
The expanded policy applies to Full Doc, Lease Doc, and Alt Doc deals. It covers selected parts of Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, Newcastle, the Central Coast, Wollongong, and Geelong, according to ORDE's announcement of its expanded commercial lending footprint.
The lender said more brokers are working with clients who are buying business premises, investing through SMSFs, or growing businesses away from the biggest east coast capitals.
Industry data points the same way. Brokers settled $52.3 billion in commercial, business, and asset finance in 2025, up 27.4% from $41.1 billion in 2024, according to the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia's first State of Mortgage & Finance Broking Report. The number of brokers writing this type of finance rose 6.3% to 11,785 across the report's matched aggregator sample.
Brokers can check whether a security qualifies using ORDE's online postcode tool for LVR limits. The tool shows the maximum LVR and loan size by suburb and product. ORDE says the limits are a guide only, with valuation, the security itself, and borrower credit able to reduce them.
Research behind the policy shift
Lee Prior (pictured), director of distribution at ORDE, linked the move to the lender's Outlook Australia research with demographer Bernard Salt, which points to faster activity outside the largest capitals.
"That's exactly where many brokers are seeing opportunities emerge," Prior said.
ORDE chief executive Paul Wells has said the lender was shaped around broker demand. "We built ORDE by listening to brokers," he said.
The Outlook Australia research was produced with The Demographics Group and published on ORDE's Building Futures research hub for brokers. It finds business activity is spreading into outer-metro and fringe corridors around Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, as new infrastructure and jobs hubs draw start-ups, trade businesses, and professional firms.
ORDE's research also tracks a change in who is borrowing. Over the past 25 years, the tradie workforce has grown by 50%. Professional roles such as engineers and IT consultants have risen by 143%, and many of these earners don't fit standard pay-as-you-go (PAYG) income profiles. Tradies now make up 13% of the workforce, the research says, citing Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
It also points to about seven million millennials moving into their 40s over the next decade, with intergenerational wealth transfer lifting their borrowing capacity.
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