Guide · Commercial property
Negotiating a commercial lease you can still finance in five years.
Lenders read your lease before they read your business plan. The terms tenants concede first — options, assignment, make-good, outgoings — are the same terms that decide what a bank will lend against the property later.
A 10-page working guide for Canberra and regional NSW, written from live transactions. No theory, no filler.
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“A lease is a financing document that happens to describe a building. Most tenants sign it as though it were the other way around.”
What's inside
Six sections, and what each one saves you before you sign.
The market data and the lease terms that decide whether a lease costs you money, protects it, or quietly limits what a bank will lend against the property later.
Current market benchmarks
Face rent versus net effective rent across Civic and non-Civic precincts, industrial rates in Fyshwick and Mitchell, and cap-rate benchmarks by asset class — mid-2026, so you negotiate against the market, not the asking price.
The ten terms worth negotiating
Rent reviews, make-good, assignment, options to renew, and outgoings — the terms tenants concede first, and the ones a lender reads hardest when the property is later financed.
A worked cap-rate example
A confirmed Fyshwick sale, broken down step by step, so you can test whether a landlord's asking rent sits above what the investment market actually supports.
How to source your own data
How to pull comparable rents and lease terms directly from the ACT Land Titles Office, and convert a title-sourced gross rent to a net effective rate.
Where your leverage sits
The three factors that set your negotiating position — and why the incentive conversation should stay separate from the rent conversation.
A pre-signing checklist
Ten items to confirm before you execute, from legal review to fit-out contribution terms — so nothing slips under settlement pressure.
Who it's for
Business owners taking new premises
You are negotiating a lease that will sit underneath every finance application you make for the next decade. The terms you concede now set your borrowing capacity later.
Owners preparing to sell
A buyer finances the lease as much as the business. Assignment restrictions and short residual terms are two of the most common reasons a sale falls over at the credit stage.
Investors and landlords
Lease quality is valuation. Knowing how a lender reads your tenant covenant tells you which concessions lift the asset value, and which erode it.
Written by
George Popadalis
Principal · Black Mountain Financial
We structure commercial property, development, and acquisition finance across a panel of 100+ lenders, with 20+ years across banking & finance behind it. The lease terms in this guide are the ones we renegotiate most often — usually after the ink has dried, when the cost is highest.
We work with a deliberately small client base. That's intentional.
Read it before you sign, not after.
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Related reading: The true cost of unsecured business lending in Australia · How debt structure can accelerate or kill a business acquisition · Speak to a principal
General information only — it does not consider your objectives, financial situation or needs, and is not legal advice, credit assistance, credit advice, or a finance offer. Market data in the guide is current as at mid-2026 and subject to change; figures are illustrative and deal-dependent. Black Mountain Financial Pty Ltd · ACL 570391.