FGO Finance Group is a Melbourne broker that arranges commercial property finance across Victoria, and interstate through the national lenders on our panel. We cover five Melbourne markets in detail (the south-east, west and north industrial corridors, the city fringe, and the CBD with Southbank and St Kilda Road) plus Geelong. Melbourne industrial vacancy sits between 4.4% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) and 5.0% (Knight Frank, Q2 2026), with JLL at 4.9% (Q2 2026), and business finance for property purchases reached a record $27.2bn in the June quarter of 2026 (ABS Lending Indicators).
Location changes a commercial property loan in three ways. The first is sales evidence: a valuer pricing a Dandenong South warehouse can test it against several dated 2026 sales, while a valuer in a small country town may have one or two to work with. The second is liquidity, because a lender always asks how quickly it could sell the security if it ever had to, and the answer is slower where fewer buyers compete. The third is the asset in that location, since an office floor on St Kilda Road and an inner industrial unit in Collingwood sit a few kilometres apart and carry very different vacancy.
Some lenders set out the locations they accept, typically the capital cities plus named regional centres, and a property outside a lender's list goes to a different lender. Within the locations a lender accepts, the difference usually shows up as more questions about the lease, the tenant and the building, assessed deal by deal. Even inside Melbourne, a new unit in an outer growth estate where vacancy is concentrated can be read more cautiously than established stock closer in. Lender location lists and appetite differ by lender and change over time, so treat this as an illustrative pattern and check it against the lender on the day.
Which Melbourne commercial property markets do we cover, and how do they differ?
Each market below has its own page with a sourced data table, the sub-precincts and asset types lenders look at there, and a worked example built around a different lending mechanic. One figure per market shows why they don't behave alike.
Dandenong and the south-east
Over a third of the south-east's empty industrial space sits in the newer Pakenham and Cranbourne West estates (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026), so an established Dandenong South warehouse and a new growth-estate unit are read as two different loans.
Truganina, Derrimut and Laverton North
Melbourne's largest industrial market by take-up, where incentives reach 30.0 to 32.5% in select suburbs (Knight Frank, Q2 2026), so the loan is sized on effective rent more than face rent.
Epping, Thomastown and the north
The highest industrial vacancy in Melbourne at 7.7% (Knight Frank, Q2 2026), with a record 421,000 sqm due in 2027, which puts the length of the lease at the front of a lender's questions.
Richmond, Cremorne and Collingwood
Office yields of 7.25% to 7.63% with incentives of 33% to 34% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) sit beside inner industrial vacancy of 2.5% (Knight Frank, Q2 2026), so the asset type decides the loan.
CBD, Southbank and St Kilda Road
CBD office vacancy of 18.9% to 20.5% (Property Council, July 2026; JLL, Q2 2026) and 31.8% on St Kilda Road (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026), where a high yield usually means a smaller loan.
Geelong
About 265 ha of vacant Industrial 2 land against just over 21 ha taken up a year (realcommercial, September 2026), and thinner sales evidence than Melbourne, so the lease and tenant carry more of the valuation.
The general approval framework that applies to any property in the city, from LVR and interest cover to how a valuer reads the lease, is on our Melbourne commercial property finance page. Box Hill and the eastern suburbs don't have a page of their own yet. Knight Frank has the East precinct at 2.0% industrial vacancy (Q2 2026), the only Melbourne precinct below its ten-year average, but we haven't found enough published, dated data on the area to say more than that.
Does a lender treat a Melbourne property differently from a regional Victorian one?
In most cases it does, because a metro property comes with a deeper pool of comparable sales, so a valuer has more to test the price against and a lender has more confidence in the number it lends on. A regional property tends to have thinner evidence and fewer buyers if the lender ever needs to sell. That shows up as more conservative terms, assessed deal by deal, more often than as a refusal or a fixed regional discount.
Regional Victoria isn't one market either. Larger centres such as Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo have more sales evidence and more lenders willing to look at them than a small town does. Geelong shows the pattern clearly: its healthcare property drew buyers from Queensland, Sydney and Melbourne in 2026, yet none of the major research houses we checked publishes an industrial vacancy or yield figure for it, so the lease and the tenant carry more of the valuation. Our Geelong commercial property finance page works through what that means for a loan.
There is also a cost difference on the way in. The State Revenue Office applies a 50% land transfer duty concession to eligible commercial and industrial property bought in regional Victoria, across 44 qualifying regional councils, provided the qualifying use starts within two years and continues for 12 months (SRO, updated 12 June 2026). Lenders don't usually fund duty, so a lower duty bill reduces the cash a buyer needs at settlement.
A specialised regional asset can still be financed on workable terms with the right lender. Our case study on financing a regional Victorian service station at 65% LVR shows one example, including the revaluation 18 months later.
What does Victoria's Commercial and Industrial Property Tax change for a buyer's equity?
The Commercial and Industrial Property Tax (CIPT) is replacing stamp duty on Victorian commercial and industrial property, one property at a time. According to the State Revenue Office (updated 29 September 2026), it works like this:
| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| Entry transaction | A property with a qualifying commercial or industrial use starts a 10-year transition when it changes hands in an entry transaction on or after 1 July 2024. Stamp duty is paid on that transaction. |
| Concessions | If an exemption or concession leaves duty payable on less than 50% of the property's market value, the transaction doesn't qualify as an entry transaction. The regional 50% concession can apply only if the remaining duty still meets that test. |
| Later sales | Future transactions may be exempt from stamp duty and landholder duty, provided the property keeps a qualifying use and meets the conditions for that type of transaction. |
| Annual tax | After the 10-year transition, CIPT applies at a flat 1% of the site (unimproved) value each year. An entry on 1 July 2024 means CIPT first applies in the 2035 tax year. |
| Land tax | Land tax may still apply during the transition, and after it an owner may be liable for both taxes. |
| Transition loan | Eligible purchasers may be able to borrow the duty on an entry transaction through a transition loan from the Treasury Corporation of Victoria. |
For a loan, the point is equity. Lenders don't usually fund stamp duty, so on an entry transaction the duty comes out of the buyer's own money alongside the deposit. If the property has already entered the reform and the conditions are met, the next qualifying purchase may carry no duty, which lowers the cash needed at settlement. The SRO issues property clearance certificates that show a property's entry date and CIPT status, and checking that early tells you which case you are in. How the tax applies to your purchase is a question for your accountant or solicitor; our part is working out what it does to the equity a lender will want to see. You can estimate duty at general rates with our stamp duty calculator.
Which industrial zones will a lender see on a Victorian title?
The zone decides what the land can be used for, and that feeds straight into the valuation, because a lender wants to know what the property is worth to the next owner if the current one leaves. Victoria's planning provisions set out three industrial zones.
| Zone | What it is for | What a lender weighs |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial 1 Zone (IN1Z) | The main industrial zone: manufacturing, warehousing, container storage and similar uses | The broadest pool of buyers and tenants. The 2026 Williams Road sale in Dandenong South, covered on our south-east page, was in this zone |
| Industrial 2 Zone (IN2Z) | Large, state-significant industrial areas with a core more than 1,500 m from residential zones, kept for uses that need separation | Fewer alternative uses and, in some areas, plenty of supply. Geelong's 265 ha of vacant land is Industrial 2 |
| Industrial 3 Zone (IN3Z) | A buffer between IN1Z or IN2Z land and residential areas, for smaller service industries less reliant on heavy vehicles | Use limits near housing, which can narrow the next buyer or tenant for a heavy-use building |
Overlays matter as much as the zone. An Environmental Audit Overlay flags possible contamination and can require an audit before a sensitive use; flood overlays such as the Land Subject to Inundation Overlay and the Special Building Overlay raise questions about insurance and building work; and a Heritage Overlay can limit what an owner may change. On a site with an industrial history, lenders and valuers commonly ask for an environmental report, so it pays to read the planning certificate before the contract goes unconditional.
Do we arrange commercial property finance in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide?
Yes, through national lenders on our panel, working from Melbourne. We don't claim local market knowledge in those cities, so the figures below are published industrial market data, with Melbourne included for comparison. Each publisher measures a different stock base, which is why the vacancy readings differ.
| City | Industrial vacancy | Prime yield | Recent evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 4.4% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) to 5.0% (Knight Frank, Q2 2026) | 5.81% average (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) | Almost $1.1bn of industrial investment in 2026 to Q3 (Cushman & Wakefield) |
| Sydney | 2.8% (Knight Frank, reported August 2026) to 5.8% (JLL, Q2 2026) | 5.26% average (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) | 2a Factory Street, Granville, $110.0m sale and leaseback (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) |
| Brisbane | 3.1% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) to 4.5% (JLL, Q2 2026) | 5.74% average (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) | About $925m traded in 2026 to Q3, including Charter Hall's purchase at 39 Gravel Pit Road, Darra (Cushman & Wakefield) |
| Perth | 2.2% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026; JLL, Q2 2026) | 6.13% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) | Perth Airport distribution centre, $267.7m at 5.63% (Cushman & Wakefield, Q3 2026) |
| Adelaide | 3.8% (JLL, Q2 2026) | 6.19% average (Knight Frank, Q2 2026) | $404m across 24 deals in the first half of 2026 (Knight Frank, Q2 2026) |
Perth has the tightest industrial vacancy of the five cities, and Sydney has the widest gap between publishers. For how yields compare across cities and asset types, and what a yield gap does to the size of a loan, see our data story on commercial property yields by city. The record level of business property lending nationally is covered in business property lending hits a record as home loans fall.
Questions about where we arrange commercial property loans
Do you arrange commercial property loans outside Melbourne?
Yes, we arrange commercial property finance across Victoria, including Geelong and other regional centres, and interstate through national lenders on our panel. Markets differ by city: JLL's Q2 2026 figures put industrial vacancy at 2.2% in Perth and 5.8% in Sydney. Send us the address and asset type to start.
Why do lenders ask more questions about a regional Victorian property?
Regional property usually has fewer comparable sales and fewer buyers if a lender ever has to sell. In Geelong, for example, none of the major research houses we checked publishes an industrial vacancy or yield figure, so valuers lean on the lease and the tenant. Expect more conservative terms, assessed deal by deal, and send the lease early.
Is stamp duty still payable on Victorian commercial property after the 2024 reform?
Yes, on the entry transaction. Duty is paid on the entry transaction, on or after 1 July 2024, that starts its 10-year transition to the Commercial and Industrial Property Tax, and later qualifying sales may be exempt (SRO, September 2026). Lenders don't usually fund duty, so check the property's status before setting your deposit.
Which Melbourne industrial precinct had the lowest vacancy in 2026?
The East precinct had the lowest industrial vacancy in Melbourne. Knight Frank puts it at 2.0% (Q2 2026) and Cushman & Wakefield at 2.7% (Q3 2026), against 7.7% in the north on Knight Frank's figures. We don't have an East page yet, so start with our Melbourne commercial property finance page for the general framework.
Sources: Cushman & Wakefield Logistics and Industrial MarketBeat Q3 2026 (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth) and Melbourne Fringe Office MarketBeat Q3 2026; Property Council of Australia Office Market Report, July 2026 (via realcommercial, 12 Aug 2026); Knight Frank Melbourne Industrial State of the Market Q2 2026 and Adelaide Q2 2026 (via The Industrialist, 12 Aug 2026); Knight Frank Australian Industrial Review Q2 2026 (via The Industrialist, 19 Aug 2026); JLL Australian Industrial Market Analysis Q2 2026 and Melbourne Office Q2 2026; ABS Lending Indicators, June quarter 2026; realcommercial.com.au (10 and 17 Sep 2026); State Revenue Office Victoria, Understanding commercial and industrial property tax (updated 29 September 2026) and Regional commercial, industrial and extractive industries property concession (updated 12 June 2026); Victorian Planning Provisions, 33.01 Industrial 1 Zone, 33.02 Industrial 2 Zone and 33.03 Industrial 3 Zone. Market figures are published research, not lender policy.