That’s right, a lot of major lenders like CBA, WBC, ANZ, St George, BankWest, Macquarie, and others stopped offering SMSF loans because of the smaller size of the market, the complexity of trust loans, and because the lender's recourse is limited to the asset itself.
Technically, NAB still offers SMSF loans but they have such stringent requirements and conditions that less than 1% of the population will qualify for it. So, in reality, they don’t do it. However, there are a few select lenders that still offer SMSF loans for residential and commercial investment properties.
Different lenders have different qualifying requirements you need to meet for an SMSF investment loan, generally speaking:
- The maximum LVR you can borrow for a residential investment loan is up to 70%-80% of the property value.
- You’d need 20-25% of the property value as a deposit plus an extra 5% to cover the costs of completing the purchase.
- As a minimum, your SMSF’s net worth must be over $150,000.
- Some lenders prefer the trustee to be a corporate entity, while others are okay with an individual (both are accepted by some).
- The security will have postcode restrictions. Metro locations are preferred, non-metro considered on a case by case basis.
- Lenders want to see between 10% and 20% of the property value in cash within your SMSF account as an SMSF loan liquidity requirement also known as post-settlement liquidity requirement.
- Other standard mortgage lending criteria apply.