A Melbourne private lender
for commercial property.

Nowhere reliable, which is worth knowing before you go looking. Australian commercial private credit has no independent review platform, and the consumer ratings sites that do rank lenders are indexing retail borrowing rather than first and second mortgages written to companies. So private lender reviews in Melbourne come down to one broker's account of one deal - useful, but it describes that deal. The five questions set out above are what to run instead, and each of our answers can be checked before a client is committed to anything. Ask us for an introduction to a broker who has settled a file shaped like yours when you accredit.

Nobody is, and a lender who tells you otherwise is selling. The right Melbourne private lender depends on the shape of the deal: the position, the LVR, the postcode, whether the borrower can evidence income, and how hard the exit date is. We are the right call on a first or second mortgage against Melbourne property where the exit is clear and the timetable is short, and on a file a bank has already declined on servicing. We are the wrong call on a loan to an individual borrower, on consumer or owner-occupied purpose, on an unsecured facility, or where the client needs a five-year term. Judge any lender on four things you can verify before you send a file: whether they lend their own capital, whether the fees are published, what they commit to in writing on timing, and whether a broker who has settled with them will take your call.

A lender. We lend from committed institutional capital, secured by registered mortgage over Australian property, and there is no panel to shop your deal around.

Both describe the same business from different angles. Private credit is the asset class - non-bank capital lent directly to a borrower rather than raised through a bank deposit book. A private mortgage is the security we take for it: a registered first or second mortgage over Australian property. So a private credit lender in Melbourne that secures its loans by mortgage is a private mortgage lender in Melbourne, and we are both. What we are not is a broker, a fund manager raising money deal by deal, or a syndicator.

We will not tell you we are, because every lender says it. What we will commit to is a first response within four business hours and an indicative position the same business day on a complete submission. Settlement is then driven by the valuation and the legals, and our fastest is five days. Ask any Melbourne lender for those three numbers in writing and compare them.

Yes. We are a private lender for development finance in Melbourne in the sense that matters on a staged build, and Alphacon Line is the product. Your client draws against progress rather than taking the whole facility at settlement, and interest runs on the drawn balance rather than the approved limit. Add a per-drawdown fee to the cost, and give us the draw schedule at submission so credit can set it up once. It is staged-build and site finance secured by mortgage, assessed on the security and the exit rather than on a bank's progress-payment regime.

Yes, where the borrower is a company or a trustee, the purpose is business or investment, and there is Australian property to secure it. That last condition is the one that decides it. We do not run a servicing calculator or score trading history, so a Melbourne business with a good asset and a thin or recent set of accounts is not filtered out before a person reads the file - but we cannot lend unsecured, and we cannot lend to an individual in their own name. Facilities start at $100,000, which is deliberately low enough for a small business deal to be worth writing.

Yes, on Alphacon Second, from $100,000 to $5,000,000 behind an existing first mortgage. Combined LVR inside 70%, and the first mortgagee's consent is the long pole - name the incumbent at submission so consent runs in parallel with credit. The second mortgage page sets out what credit looks at in that position, in Melbourne or anywhere else.

To 75% on Alphacon Bridge, Fast and Line, 70% on Reach, and 70% combined where Alphacon Second sits behind an existing first. The LVR calculator checks a scenario against each product's published maximum, including the combined position.

Not as a servicing test. Alphacon Fast, Line, Reach and Second do not score credit at all - the assessment sits on the security and the exit. Alphacon Bridge is the exception and the trade is deliberate: it wants an accountant's letter or prepaid interest and credit above 600, in exchange for carrying no risk fee.

Rates start at 8.50% p.a. and are priced per deal on the security, the peak LVR and the strength of the exit. On top sit an establishment fee, a monthly loan management fee, the valuation, and a risk fee on every product except Alphacon Bridge. The bridging cost estimator itemises the total over the term, and the product guide carries the full fee schedule.

Yes, and further into metro than most expect: Geelong and the Mornington Peninsula are classed metro on the schedule, so they keep the full product set. Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton and the Latrobe Valley are non-metro and price on the products written Australia-wide: Alphacon Bridge, Reach and Second. The postcode checker gives the classification for a given address.