Commercial Property Finance Perth: Former Bankers for Workshops, Yards and Consulting Rooms in the State That Charges Duty on the GST

Commercial Property Finance Perth: Former Bankers for Workshops, Yards and Consulting Rooms in the State That Charges Duty on the GST

Perth has the tightest industrial market in Australia, 2.2 per cent vacant on Cushman & Wakefield’s Perth Logistics and Industrial MarketBeat for Q2 2026, inside the one state that assesses transfer duty on the GST-inclusive price. Land tax then runs on a single schedule for every owner, aggregated across everything held in the same name, plus the Metropolitan Region Improvement Tax inside the metropolitan region. Former major bank lenders in South Yarra run Perth files by video across more than 40 lenders.

Western Australia charges duty on the GST: the settlement sum at Perth prices

The RevenueWA transfer duty page, updated 30 July 2026, carries the sentence that catches buyers from the east: “If GST is payable on a transaction, the dutiable value will include the amount of GST.” A commercial purchase is assessed at the general rate, $28,453 plus $5.15 for every $100 or part of $100 above $725,000. The 7 per cent foreign buyers duty on RevenueWA’s foreign buyers page of 13 August 2026 applies to residential property only, so a Singapore company buying a Kewdale workshop pays what a local pays.

Elsewhere GST is a timing cost; in Perth part of it is permanent. Under the ATO’s GST and property guidance a registered buyer claims the credit on the activity statement for the period of settlement, but the refund never reaches the duty: on the $1.8 million workshop below the GST-inclusive value is $1,980,000 and the duty $93,086, $9,270 above the $83,816 on a going concern price. A tenanted building sold with its leases can meet the ATO’s going concern conditions and settle GST-free; a bare property cannot, and under the margin scheme the buyer gets no credit. In Perth the accountant’s GST call is also a duty call.

Duty from the RevenueWA general rate schedule of 30 July 2026, per $100 or part of $100, no concession, no foreign buyers duty; the GST-inclusive column adds 10 per cent to the price as the page directs. Landgate fees are the 1 July 2026 transfer scale on the GST-inclusive value, with the $225.10 mortgage lodgement on top. Descriptions are illustrative.

Landgate’s land transaction fees for 2026 to 2027 scale the transfer lodgement fee to the value RevenueWA assessed, from $225.10 up to $85,000 to $615.10 at $2 million and $20 for every $100,000 or part above that; a mortgage lodgement is $225.10. RevenueWA’s business assets fact sheet of 2 June 2026 adds goodwill, a business identity, a business licence and client lists to the dutiable list, so a buyer who takes a childcare centre, a practice or a licensed venue with its premises pays duty on both.

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Land tax and the Metropolitan Region Improvement Tax: one schedule, one aggregated bill

RevenueWA assesses land tax on whoever owned the land at midnight on 30 June. Its land tax assessment page, updated 20 May 2026, starts the tax above $300,000 of aggregated taxable value: a flat $300 to $420,000, then $300 plus 0.25 cents a dollar to $1 million, $1,750 plus 0.9 cents to $1.8 million, $8,950 plus 1.8 cents to $5 million, $66,550 plus 2 cents to $11 million and $186,550 plus 2.67 cents beyond. A home is exempt, a warehouse is not, and the page publishes one schedule with no separate rate for a company, a trust or a foreign owner.

The second line on the notice is new to interstate owners. Metropolitan Region Improvement Tax is “imposed on property in the Perth metropolitan area”, 0.14 cents for each dollar of aggregated taxable value above $300,000, on top of land tax. RevenueWA’s map of the region runs from the City of Wanneroo to Rockingham and Serpentine-Jarrahdale, so Wangara, Kewdale, Welshpool, Canning Vale, Bibra Lake and Henderson all sit inside it.

Computed from the RevenueWA land tax and MRIT tables of 20 May 2026 on the aggregated taxable value of all non-exempt land in the same ownership, no exemptions applied.

Two mechanics decide what a second Perth property costs to hold. Aggregation: every lot in the same ownership is added together before the rate is applied, so a second warehouse in the same company name is taxed at the top of the first one’s bracket, while land held in a different capacity, a trustee’s for instance, is assessed alone. The cap: taxable value is the lesser of the current unimproved value and 150 per cent of the previous year’s, which slows a revaluation spike without stopping it.

Perth five-year holding cost projector: duty on the GST, then land tax, MRIT and interest

The tables describe one year; a buyer signs up for several, and in Western Australia the bill moves with the unimproved value and with whatever else is held in the same name. Type the price, the GST position, the unimproved value from the vendor’s land tax notice, any other WA land in the same ownership, the region, a deposit, your quoted rate and an assumed annual change in unimproved value; the projector returns the settlement sum and five years of land tax, MRIT and interest.

Assumptions, all labelled: duty follows the RevenueWA general schedule of 30 July 2026 per $100 or part, no concession, no foreign buyers duty; a taxable sale is assessed on the price plus 10 per cent, with the GST treated as recoverable on the next activity statement. Landgate fees are the 1 July 2026 transfer scale plus $225.10 for the mortgage. Interest is the loan times the rate you type, interest only for five years. Land tax and MRIT apply the RevenueWA schedules of 20 May 2026 to the unimproved value you enter, grow it at your rate, cap each year at 150 per cent of the previous year’s value, and charge this property the tax on the aggregate less the tax on the other land alone, that other land held flat; MRIT applies only in the metropolitan region. Exemptions, trustee rules, lender, legal and valuation fees, insurance, rates, outgoings and rent are left out. This is arithmetic on published schedules; it is not a quote and it is not credit advice.

The tightest industrial market in the country, and why a Perth file is usually an owner-occupier file

Cushman & Wakefield’s Perth Logistics and Industrial MarketBeat for Q2 2026 has vacancy at 2.2 per cent, down from 2.7, and states that “Perth is the tightest market in the country”; without sublease space it is 1.7 per cent. The sentence that explains most Perth files is the one about scarcity: supply “remains constrained in certain segments, particularly for workshop and sites which offer adequate hardstand and yard capability”, and 2026 warehouse supply of about 95,000 square metres is the lowest since 2018.

The figures a valuer reaches for are in the same report. Prime rents are approaching $175 a square metre net and $185 in the East, up 5.6 per cent over the year against a national 2.8 per cent. Land in one to five hectare lots rose 7.8 per cent in the quarter to $575 a square metre, $675 in the East, prime yields sit between 6.00 and 6.25 per cent, and the outlook says “owner-occupier demand is expected to remain a key driver of the Perth market”.

The report reads Perth in three submarkets and a credit desk does the same: the East around Perth Airport, Kewdale, Welshpool and Maddington, with the highest rents and land values; the South from Canning Vale through Bibra Lake to Henderson on Cockburn Sound; and the North around Wangara, where vacancy is 1.8 per cent. A workshop with hardstand in any of them sits at the top of the ladder in our deposit and LVR guide, and the assessor tests the exit before serviceability, as our commercial property loans guide explains.

In short: a Perth industrial file is usually a business buying the shed it has rented for years. A business that will occupy at least 51 per cent of the floor space is an owner-occupier, which on a standard warehouse or workshop carries an indicative ceiling of 80 per cent of valuation, and rent paid on time for years reads as repayments already made. What the scarcity does not do is lift the ceiling or the valuation: the report defines prime as built since 2010 with clearances above 10 metres and secondary as older stock with 8 to 11 metre clearances, and a valuer applies the secondary rent and yield to the older shed however tight the street. The land figures are why a Welshpool or Kewdale workshop bought in 2022 often sits a band lower in LVR than its loan was priced on.

Office, medical and childcare: three Perth files

Office: high vacancy, second strongest demand in the country. The Property Council of Australia’s national Office Market Report release of 6 August 2026 puts Perth CBD net absorption at 27,528 square metres for the six months, second only to Brisbane. Its Western Australian report of 10 February 2026 had Perth CBD vacancy at 16.9 per cent, second highest behind Melbourne, entering “an unprecedented drought of new office supply”. Cushman & Wakefield’s Perth CBD Office MarketBeat for Q2 2026 still has vacancy at 16.9 per cent in June, 11.1 per cent for premium and 20.1 per cent for secondary stock, with no committed developments. To a lender that is an office at an indicative 65 to 75 per cent, read on the lease before the address: a premium floor is lent on ordinary terms, a secondary floor on the tenant it has. We could not verify a 2026 figure for West Perth, the strata suite market west of the freeway; it too is priced on the lease.

Medical: hospital precincts south of the river and in the west. Perth’s consulting-room markets sit around Fiona Stanley Hospital at Murdoch, Sir Charles Gairdner at Nedlands, Royal Perth and the Joondalup Health Campus. Rooms are specialised because their value follows the practice inside them, so the ceiling is set file by file; a suite the practice occupies, or its members’ super fund owns and rents to it, is a loan most of our panel will write, and where the practice is bought with its rooms WA duty reaches the goodwill as well.

Childcare: the asset that divides the panel. A centre is worth what its operator pays, so the borrower approved on a warehouse can be declined on a childcare centre with the same deposit; the lenders that write them read the operator’s lease closely and hold the ceiling below a standard asset, and the licence and goodwill are dutiable when they change hands with the building.

Refinancing or releasing equity on a Perth commercial loan

A Perth commercial loan settled in 2021, 2022 or 2023 carries that year’s valuation and lease. Industrial land is up 7.8 per cent in a quarter on the Cushman & Wakefield figures, and our commercial rates guide values every 10 per cent of LVR at roughly a quarter to three quarters of a percentage point a year. Below $1.5 million one major bank currently refinances on a year of clean repayment conduct and a self-declared statement of position, subject to change and to its criteria. Ask your own bank to reprice first, with a competing assessment in hand, as our same bank versus switching guide sets out; the commercial refinance calculator returns the months to break even and the commercial refinance guide walks the process.

Western Australia keeps the government side of a switch to Landgate. Transfer duty is charged on a transfer of the property and a refinance transfers nothing, so the state’s part is $225.10 to discharge the old mortgage and $225.10 to register the new one; every other line belongs to a lender, and our refinancing costs guide names each one, from the discharge fee and any break cost to the new lender’s application, valuation and legal fees.

Equity release, with the Western Australian catch. The gap between today’s valuation and today’s debt can be borrowed, through a larger loan or a second facility beside the first, and our equity release guide is blunt that the valuation sets the ceiling and the income sets the real limit. In Perth the rise in unimproved value that releases the equity also lifts land tax and MRIT, so the new tax line goes into serviceability first; the saving from moving dear unsecured debt onto the building is sized by the business loan refinance savings calculator.

SMSF purchases of Perth business premises under the 2026 rules

From 10 August 2026 a self managed super fund cannot start a new limited recourse borrowing arrangement for residential property. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Reform No. 1) Act 2026 confines new fund borrowing to business real property under section 67A(2)(c) of the SIS Act, which the ATO’s investment restrictions page defines as land and buildings used wholly and exclusively in a business. A Canning Vale unit or Murdoch consulting rooms qualify; our SMSF commercial property loans guide and the 10 August explainer carry the detail.

The lending is specialist and the Western Australian taxes follow the fund rather than the members. The major banks are out of new fund loans; the specialist lenders that remain hold the ceiling at an indicative 65 to 75 per cent, look for a balance somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000, and assess the fund on rent plus contributions. The holding trust must exist before the contract is signed, and RevenueWA’s no double duty rule spares the declaration of trust a second bill only when it conforms to the initial transaction. The fund pays duty at the general rate, on the GST-inclusive value if the sale is taxable, and its premises are assessed for land tax on their own, as land held by a trustee for different persons, with their own $300,000 threshold and MRIT line. Whether a fund should own the premises is a question for a licensed financial adviser; our super property walkthrough covers the loan, and an existing fund loan can still move lender dollar for dollar under our SMSF loan refinance guide.

Perth’s precincts through our suburb pages

Our Perth suburb pages are written for home buyers; each sits beside a commercial market we lend into.

• Bateman, 12 kilometres from the GPO: the Fiona Stanley and Murdoch University precinct for consulting rooms, Garden City at Booragoon for retail, and the Kwinana Freeway to the Canning Vale sheds.
• Carine, the northern coastal corridor: the Karrinyup and Warwick centres, and the Reid Highway run to the Wangara and Balcatta workshops.
• Cottesloe: the Eric Street and North Street shops, where a shopfront with a hospitality tenant is a different loan from a vacant one.
• Dalkeith, the Waratah Avenue village and the Sir Charles Gairdner and Hollywood hospital precinct with its consulting suites up Stirling Highway.
• Fremantle, the port city: the cafe and harbour strips, the O’Connor and Bibra Lake industrial pockets inland, and Henderson’s marine precinct south along the Sound.

Home loans in these suburbs are on our Perth mortgage broker page and the locations page lists every suburb we cover; eastern business owners have their own Melbourne commercial property loans page, Sydney commercial property loans page and Brisbane commercial property finance page.

FIFO owners, expats, interstate and foreign buyers

Western Australia is easier on an outside buyer of commercial property than of a house: foreign buyers duty is confined to residential property and the land tax schedule has no separate rate for an overseas owner, so a Western Australian working in Dubai, a Melbourne investor and a foreign-owned company each pay the general duty and the same land tax and MRIT on a Perth warehouse.

The lending is where the file gets harder, and Perth produces two versions of it. The first is the business owner whose income arrives on a roster, a contractor to the resources sector with invoices landing in lumps around shutdowns; a lender reads two years of financials and the lease, and the choice of lender decides whether a strong year is averaged or discounted. The second is the expat, whose overseas salary is shaded, typically to about 70 per cent after conversion and up to about 80 per cent in preferred currencies, as our expat home loans guide explains; on a leased Perth asset the rent can carry the file instead, at 60 to 70 per cent of valuation. Neither needs a flight home: identity is checked by video or at Australia Post, documents are signed electronically and PEXA settles, and Perth’s clock, two hours behind Melbourne from April to October and three during eastern daylight saving, suits a lunchtime call.

How a South Yarra former banker runs a Perth file

Everstone Finance works from 35 Malcolm Street, South Yarra; its founders, Ahmed Lotfi and Zappelin Heng, assessed commercial files inside major banks before they arranged them, and the gaps between lenders on LVR, covenants and lease reading are not on any rate card. A Perth file starts with a video or phone conversation in your time zone, then a short document list through a secure link, then the lease, financials and statement of position in front of more than 40 bank and non-bank lenders to find which wants a Perth workshop, warehouse or consulting suite this quarter and at what ceiling. Files run in English, Arabic or French; the online broker page describes each step. The lender pays us on settlement, any fee on a specialist commercial file is disclosed in writing before you apply, as our guide to what a broker costs sets out, and the first conversation is free. Everstone Finance Pty Ltd operates under the Best Interests Duty.

Book a free Perth commercial finance appointment by video with a former banker

Who you will be talking to

The people behind Everstone

Commercial finance is one of the largest decisions a business owner or investor makes. Here is who will actually be working on your file.

Ahmed Lotfi

Mortgage Broker & Co-Founder

A former major bank lender who now works entirely for you. Ahmed runs the file personally: security, structure, lender selection and the negotiation with the commercial credit desk. English, Arabic and French.

Zappelin Heng

Mortgage Broker & Co-Founder

Co-founder with deep lender experience, focused on getting complex and self-employed files assessed on their real strength, not a tick-box, including business owners and investors with multiple securities.

Perth commercial property finance FAQs

Guides to read before you sign in Western Australia

• Commercial property loans in Australia: the 51 per cent test and the exit-first assessment.
• Commercial property loan deposit and LVR: the asset ladder.
• Commercial property loan rates: the five pricing levers.
• SMSF commercial property loans: borrowing after 10 August 2026.
• Commercial property equity release: the two routes.
• Commercial loan refinancing costs: every fee on a switch.

Book your free commercial call with Ahmed

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