ACL 390611 | MFAA Member | Established 2005
Investment Loans.Structured for the Next One Too.
Two investors can buy the same property and end up in very different positions, because the loan is where the tax treatment, your access to equity and your next purchase are all decided. We structure this one against the portfolio you are trying to build, not just the contract in front of you.
15 minutes on the phone. Bring your income, your existing loans and what you are trying to buy. No credit check, no paperwork, no obligation. If the numbers only work because of the tax deduction, we will tell you that too. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement and we disclose it in writing before any work begins.
Intellect Finance – Investment Loan Brokers
Independent since 2005 | ACL 390611What Is an Investment Loan and How Is It Different from a Home Loan?
An investment loan is a home loan used to buy or refinance residential property you intend to rent out rather than live in. Lenders generally price and assess investment lending more conservatively than owner-occupied lending, and the interest is deductible only to the extent the borrowed money produces assessable income.
The mechanics of the loan are the same. What differs is how it is assessed, how it is priced, and what it does to your tax position and your future borrowing. Rental income is counted, but it is shaded, and every lender shades it by a different amount before it reaches your serviceability calculation.
The part that decides most portfolios is structure rather than rate. Whether the loan is split, whether your home is used as security, whether the equity stays accessible, and whether the deductible and private portions are kept separate all matter more in two years than the rate does today. The ATO’s position is that interest is deductible only to the extent the borrowing is used to produce assessable income, so what the money is used for governs, not what secures it.
Common Situations
Where Property Investors Usually Are When They Call Us
Six situations cover most investment loan enquiries. The structure question is different in each one, and it is the part that is hardest to unwind later.
Buying your first investment property
The decisions made here set the pattern for everything after it. Whose name, which security, split or not, and whether the deposit comes from cash or from equity. All of it is cheaper to get right now than to restructure later.
The second or third purchase has stalled
Capacity runs out sooner than most people expect, and often the constraint is how the earlier loans were written rather than what you earn. Which lender holds them, and how they are secured, both matter.
You want to use equity in your home
Common, and workable, but the way it is drawn changes the tax position and puts your home behind the investment. See cash-out refinance for how the release itself works.
An interest-only period is ending
Repayments step up when principal starts, because it is being repaid across a shorter remaining term. Worth addressing months out rather than in the month it happens. See refinancing.
You are moving out and renting your home
The property changes use, and so does the tax treatment of the loan against it. The loan itself may also need to change category with the lender. Get the advice before you move, not at tax time.
Buying in a structure rather than your own name
Fewer lenders, different documents and a different assessment. Whether it suits you is a question for your accountant. Whether it can be funded, and by whom, is ours. See SMSF loans.
Social Proof
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Joseph Sukkar
Principal Broker · ACL 390611
Who You’re Dealing With
Built on 25 Years in Australian Finance
Joseph Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded Intellect Finance in Penrith in 2005. Since then the team has arranged more than 6,500 loans for clients across Australia, from first homes to complex commercial and asset finance.
Residential lending sits with Moufid, our Head of Residential Lending, who has watched plenty of portfolios stop at two properties for reasons that were set at the first settlement. On an investment loan the useful work happens before anything is lodged. Whether the loan is split, which properties secure what, and whether deductible and private debt are kept apart all cost nothing at settlement, and together they decide whether there is a third purchase.
100+ Lenders Including
Accreditation with a lender is not an endorsement by it. Which lender suits you is decided by your file, not by who is on this list.
Buying Again and the Numbers Stopped Working?
Often it is the structure, not the income. Fifteen minutes tells you which.What Actually Decides It
An Investment Loan Is a Tax Structure With a Rate Attached
What you can deduct on an investment loan is decided by what the borrowed money was used for and how the loan was written, not by which property secures it. Six things follow, and they are all set at the beginning.
Use governs and security does not
The ATO’s position is that interest is deductible only to the extent the borrowing produces assessable income, and that a loan used for both private and income-producing purposes must be apportioned in that ratio. Borrowing against your home to buy an investment does not make the interest private, and borrowing against the investment to fund something private does not make it deductible.
Borrowing costs are spread over five years
The ATO treats borrowing expenses as deductible over several income years rather than immediately. Where the total is more than 100 dollars the deduction is spread over five years. Where it is 100 dollars or less it is fully deductible in the year it is incurred. This is loan establishment cost, not interest.
The property has to be genuinely available for rent
The ATO does not allow deductions for expenses relating to periods when a property is not genuinely available for rent, or for expenses you do not actually incur. A property held vacant while you decide what to do with it is not the same thing as a property on the market for tenants.
Fixing it up before renting it is capital
Work done to make a property suitable to be rented out is treated by the ATO as initial repairs and is capital in nature. Repairs restore something defective or deteriorated to working condition. Replacing an entire structure is an improvement. Money borrowed for each is treated differently, so the split matters before you draw it.
Investor lending is rationed separately
Since February 2026, banks may write no more than 20 per cent of new mortgage lending at a debt-to-income ratio of six or higher, and that limit is measured separately for owner-occupier and investor loans. For anyone building a portfolio, which lender you approach and in what order has become part of the strategy.
Cross-securing is easy to do and hard to undo
Tying your home and your investment to one lender under one security arrangement is simple at settlement and expensive later. It concentrates your portfolio with a single credit policy, complicates selling one property, and can trap equity you were counting on for the next purchase.
Checked 31 August 2026. Tax positions are sourced from the ATO on interest expenses, on rental expenses, which sets out immediate deductions, deductions spread over several years and expenses that cannot be claimed, and on the CGT discount. Lenders mortgage insurance is generally charged above 80 per cent of the lender’s valuation and protects the lender rather than you, per ASIC Moneysmart. Macroprudential settings are from APRA and Best Interests Duty from ASIC Regulatory Guide 273. New South Wales land tax thresholds, rates and the three-year averaging method are published by Revenue NSW, whose thresholds page was last updated 16 March 2026, with the surcharge rates from Revenue NSW surcharge land tax and Revenue NSW surcharge purchaser duty. We are not tax agents or accountants. Everything else on this page is described in the important information at the foot of the page.
We do not give tax advice, and we work alongside your accountant rather than around them. What we do is make sure the loan is written so the advice they give you is still available to you afterwards. Ask us to look at the structure.
New South Wales
Land Tax and Foreign Surcharges Are the Part Investors Underestimate
Land tax is the holding cost most first-time investors leave out of the numbers, and it does not work the way people assume. These are the New South Wales rules. Every state sets its own, so check yours if you are buying elsewhere.
It is assessed on your combined land value rather than per property
Revenue NSW applies the threshold to the combined land value of all the taxable land you own in NSW at midnight on 31 December, not to each property separately. Your home is generally exempt under the principal place of residence exemption. The investment is not. So the second purchase is often the one that first triggers it.
Thresholds are frozen and the value used is a three-year average
From 1 January 2025 the general threshold is fixed at a land value of $1,075,000 and the premium threshold at $6,571,000, following the freeze announced in the 2024-25 State Budget. Liability is worked out on the three-year average of the unimproved land value set by the Valuer General, so a single strong year does not decide it on its own.
Foreign buyers pay twice and neither charge has a threshold
Surcharge land tax is 5 per cent of the land value from the 2025 land tax year, with no tax-free threshold at all. Surcharge purchaser duty is 9 per cent of the dutiable value and is paid in addition to transfer duty. Whether you are a foreign person turns on citizenship, permanent residency and days spent in Australia, not on where you live now.
The Honest Comparison
Cash Deposit or Equity Out of Your Home?
This is the question that decides most first investment purchases, and the two answers carry very different risk.
Using savings as the deposit
- Your home stays out of it, secured only by its own loan
- Smaller total debt, so more headroom under the debt-to-income limit for the next purchase
- Simpler to unwind. One property, one loan, one lender
- Spends the cash buffer that would otherwise cover vacancies and repairs
- Savings sitting in an offset against your own home may be doing more for you where they are
Releasing equity from your home
- Keeps your cash buffer intact, which is what carries a vacancy or a repair bill
- Deductibility follows the use of the funds, so borrowing for an investment purpose is treated on that purpose
- Can be taken as a separate split, keeping deductible and private debt cleanly apart
- More total debt, and your home now carries part of the investment risk
- Done badly it cross-secures both properties to one lender, which is hard to unpick later
If the deal only works because of the deduction, it probably does not work. A tax deduction reduces the cost of a loss. It does not turn a loss into a gain, and it is worth nothing at all if the property sits vacant or the rent does not hold. We would rather tell you the numbers are thin than write the loan and let you find out in year two. On the structure question itself there is no universal answer, but there is a rule worth keeping: take equity as a separate split rather than folding it into your home loan, so the deductible portion and the private portion never mix. That single decision costs nothing at settlement and saves an accountant several hours a year afterwards. Talk to your accountant about which suits your position, and we will make sure the loan is written so their answer is still available to you.
Ask Us to Check the Numbers Without the Deduction
Whether the purchase still stands if the property sits vacant and how to keep the deductible portion split from the private one. Fifteen minutes. No obligation.The Difference
Why Not Just Add It to Your Existing Lender?
Because your existing lender will happily take the second property as security, and that is the decision that quietly ends most portfolios at two properties.
Legally On Your Side
Credit for the purchase or improvement of residential investment property is regulated consumer credit, so Best Interests Duty applies here just as it does on a home loan. We are required to act in your best interests and to give priority to your interests where they conflict with ours. A lender’s own staff carry no equivalent duty.
Structured to Keep Going
Separate securities, separate splits, deductible and private debt kept apart, and equity left where you can reach it. None of it costs more at settlement. All of it decides whether there is a third purchase.
No Fee. Not Even Clawback.
We do not charge you for the comparison, the structuring or the application, on any loan type. If you discharge the loan early we wear the clawback ourselves rather than invoicing you for it, which plenty of brokers do. Lenders pay a commission on settlement, disclosed to you in writing before any work begins.
100+ Lenders and Their Rental Shading
Every lender counts rental income differently, treats existing investment debt differently, and sits in a different position against its own debt-to-income quota. Spreading a portfolio across the right lenders in the right order is most of the work.
The Process
How an Investment Loan Comes Together
Four steps, and the structure is settled at step two, before anything is lodged anywhere.
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15 minutes
Your position and where you are heading
Income, existing loans and how they are secured, available equity, and whether this is one property or the first of several. No documents and no credit check. You finish the call with a realistic range and a view on which lenders suit the plan.
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Before lodging
Structure settled first
Deposit from cash or from equity, whether equity is taken as a separate split, which properties secure what, and whether your accountant needs to weigh in before anything is drawn. This is the step that is expensive to revisit and free to get right.
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You gather
Documents
We confirm exactly which of these your chosen lender wants before you go looking for any of them.
- Photo identification
- Two recent payslips
- Latest tax return and notice of assessment
- Three to six months of bank statements
- Statements for every existing loan
- Rental statements for properties you already hold
- Rental appraisal for the property you are buying
- Trust or company documents, if buying in a structure
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We manage
Approval through to settlement
We manage valuation, conditions and lender communication, and coordinate with your conveyancer or solicitor through to settlement. Where a split or an equity release is part of the structure, we make sure it settles in the right order.
Track Record
Independent Since 2005
Joe Sukkar started in finance in 2000 and founded the practice five years later. Residential lending sits with Moufid, who has watched plenty of portfolios stop at two properties for reasons that were set at the first settlement.
Related Options
Other Ways Investors Fund a Purchase
An investment loan is one route. These are the ones investors land on next.
Cash-out refinance
Releasing equity from a property you already own to fund the deposit.
Refinance home loan
Restructuring what you already hold, including an interest-only period ending.
SMSF loans
Buying inside super through a limited recourse borrowing arrangement.
Construction loans
Building an investment rather than buying one, drawn down in stages.
Commercial property loans
When the next purchase is a shop, a warehouse or an office rather than a house.
Every home loan we arrange
Back up to the full residential range if none of these is quite it.
Get the Structure Right the First Time.
It costs nothing at settlement and decides whether there is a next one.Questions Answered
Investment Loan FAQs
The questions property investors ask us most often before getting in touch.
What is an investment loan?
An investment loan is a home loan used to buy or refinance residential property you intend to rent out rather than live in. The mechanics are the same as an owner-occupied loan. Lenders generally price and assess investment lending more conservatively, count rental income at a discounted rate, and apply their own limits on how much investment debt they will hold.
How much deposit do I need for an investment property?
Twenty per cent of the lender’s valuation avoids lenders mortgage insurance, which protects the lender rather than you. Many lenders will consider less with LMI payable. The deposit can come from savings or from equity released against a property you already own, and which of those you use changes both your risk and your tax position.
Is the interest on an investment loan tax deductible?
It depends on use, not on security. The ATO’s position is that interest is deductible only to the extent the borrowing produces assessable income, and that a loan used for both private and income-producing purposes must be apportioned in that ratio for the life of the loan. Confirm your own position with a registered tax agent.
Can I use the equity in my home as the deposit?
Usually yes, subject to your equity and the lender’s limits. Because deductibility follows the use of the funds rather than the property securing them, borrowing for an investment purpose is treated on that purpose. Taking the release as a separate split keeps deductible and private debt cleanly apart, which your accountant will thank you for.
Are loan setup costs deductible straight away?
Generally no. The ATO treats borrowing expenses as deductible over several income years. Where the total is more than 100 dollars the deduction is spread over five years. Where it is 100 dollars or less it is fully deductible in the year incurred. This covers loan establishment costs and is separate from the interest itself.
Can I claim the cost of fixing up the property before renting it?
Not immediately. The ATO treats work done to make a property suitable to be rented out as initial repairs, which are capital in nature. A repair restores something defective or deteriorated to working condition and can be claimed. Replacing an entire structure is an improvement. The distinction matters before you borrow, not after.
Does the debt-to-income limit affect investors differently?
It is measured separately. Since 1 February 2026 banks may write no more than 20 per cent of new mortgage lending at a debt-to-income ratio of six or higher, and that quota is applied separately to owner-occupier and investor lending. For portfolio buyers, which lender you approach and in what order has become part of the strategy.
Does Best Interests Duty apply, and what does Intellect Finance charge?
Yes it applies. Credit for the purchase or improvement of residential investment property is regulated consumer credit, so brokers must act in your best interests and give priority to your interests where they conflict with ours. We charge you nothing on any loan type, and no clawback fee if you discharge early. Lenders pay a commission on settlement.
Visit Us
Penrith Based.Clients Australia-Wide.
Penrith is our head office and the one you can walk into without an appointment. We also meet clients at Parramatta and in the Sydney CBD by arrangement. Most of the process runs by phone, email and video, so we settle investment loans in every state.
Parramatta
Suite 23, Level 1, 181 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
Mortgage broker Parramatta →Ready When You Are
Structure It Once. Buy the Next One Anyway.
Fifteen minutes with a residential specialist. We’ll give you a realistic range, tell you which lenders read rental income most favourably, and flag anything in your existing structure that would stop the purchase after this one. If the numbers only work because of the deduction, we’ll say so. No credit check, no paperwork, no obligation. Penrith based, clients Australia-wide. Intellect Finance Pty Ltd, ACL 390611.
Credit for the purchase or improvement of residential investment property is regulated consumer credit, so Intellect Finance is legally required to act in your best interests under the Best Interests Duty in the National Consumer Credit Protection Act. We are not tax agents and nothing here is tax advice. Nothing on this page is credit assistance or an offer of credit, and no outcome is guaranteed.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member
Important information General information only. Not credit assistance, tax advice or an offer of credit. We charge you no fee. Every caveat and source on this page is collected here. Tap to read.
General information only. The content on this page is general in nature and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not credit assistance, financial advice, legal advice or tax advice, and it is not an offer of credit. You should consider whether it is appropriate for you and seek your own advice before acting on it.
We are not tax agents. Every tax position described on this page is the Australian Taxation Office’s published general position, cited and dated where it appears. Whether it applies to you depends on your circumstances, your ownership structure and what borrowed funds are actually used for. Deductibility, apportionment, capital works, depreciation and capital gains treatment must be confirmed with a registered tax agent or the ATO before you act. Nothing on this page is a substitute for that advice.
Nothing here is a guarantee. Loan approval, borrowing capacity, interest rates, loan to value ratios, valuations, rental assessments, document requirements, timeframes and eligibility are determined by individual lenders and by independent valuers, not by us. They differ between lenders and change over time. Any figure or range on this page is indicative and is not a quote, an offer, or a prediction of your outcome.
Investment risk. Property values, rents and vacancy rates move, and negative gearing reduces the cost of a loss rather than creating a gain. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to purchase any property or a forecast of any return. We arrange finance. We do not provide investment advice and we are not licensed to.
Best Interests Duty. Credit provided to consumers for the purchase or improvement of residential investment property is regulated under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009. When providing credit assistance in relation to these products, Intellect Finance is required to act in your best interests and, where there is a conflict of interest, to give priority to your interests. These obligations have applied to mortgage brokers since 1 January 2021.
State taxes. Stamp duty, land tax, foreign purchaser surcharges and vacancy provisions are set by each state and territory revenue office, differ between them, and are not otherwise covered on this page. In New South Wales the land tax thresholds do not apply to land held in special or discretionary trusts, and joint owners share one threshold. Confirm your position with your own state’s revenue office, your accountant or your solicitor.
How we are paid. Intellect Finance does not charge borrowers a fee for arranging finance, and does not charge a clawback fee where a loan is discharged early. Lenders pay us a commission on settlement. The basis of that commission is disclosed to you in writing in our Credit Guide before any credit assistance is provided.
Third-party information. Where this page refers to tax treatment, regulatory settings or lender policy, that information is sourced from the relevant authority and was correct to the best of our knowledge at the date shown on this page. Regulatory limits described on this page apply to banks and other lenders regulated by APRA. Non-bank lenders outside APRA’s remit are not covered, and individual lenders set their own policies on top. Those rules change, sometimes without notice. Always confirm the current position with the issuing authority or with us before relying on it.
Found something wrong? If you believe anything on this page is inaccurate or out of date, tell us at joe@intellectfinance.com.au and we will review and correct it.
Intellect Finance Pty Ltd | Australian Credit Licence 390611 | MFAA Member | AFCA Member