Business loans for cleaning and facility services businesses
HomeSec lends to commercial cleaning, security, grounds and facility services contractors against equity in real property, from $20,000 to $5,000,000. No financial statements, no valuation and no serviceability test, funded in as little as 24 hours — for a business that pays wages weekly and is paid monthly in arrears.
See if you qualify in sixty seconds. No credit check to apply, no financials, no payments for the first six months. That's the HomeSec Advantage.
See if you qualifyThe cash cycle you are actually borrowing against
Facility services is the purest example of a labour-funded business. Wages are the cost, they are paid weekly or fortnightly, and they include award penalty rates for the night and weekend work that is most of the industry. The client — a strata manager, a building owner, a retailer, a hospital, a government department — is invoiced monthly in arrears and pays on 30 to 60 day terms. The contractor carries six to ten weeks of payroll at all times, permanently, as a condition of being in business.
Winning work makes the hole deeper before it makes it shallower. Mobilising a new contract means recruiting, inducting, insuring and equipping a crew, and often buying machines and consumables for the site, all before a single invoice is raised. A contractor that wins three sites in a quarter can be more profitable and less solvent at the same time.
The compliance load is heavier than it looks from outside: workers compensation across states, public liability, police checks and inductions, award interpretation on shift loadings, and in many contracts a requirement to evidence that subcontractors have been paid. Each is a real cost and each falls due on its own schedule rather than on the client's.
What makes the phone ring
| The event | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Payroll against a 45-day debtor ledger | The most common file in this industry, and it is structural rather than a warning sign. |
| Mobilising a new contract | Recruitment, equipment, consumables and insurance before the first invoice. |
| A client paying late or disputing | One large building manager slipping a month consumes the margin on the contract. |
| Equipment for a site | Scrubbers, sweepers, vehicles or specialist plant required by a contract. |
| An ATO or superannuation balance | A large payroll makes PAYG withholding and super substantial, and both accrue on money the client has not paid yet. |
| Losing a major contract | Wages continue through a notice period while the revenue does not. |
What you can offer as security
The business itself owns very little — vehicles, machines, and a debtors ledger that may already be financed. The security here is almost always the owner's own real property: a home or an investment property, assessed to 80% of value, with the company or trust as borrower.
Where the business owns a depot, a store or a commercial unit, that is commercial security assessed to 70%. Several properties can be combined on one loan.
Contracts and debtors are not security. Debtor finance exists for exactly that and may suit part of the need; where it is fully drawn, too slow, or unwilling to fund a contract that has not started, property is what remains.
How much you can borrow
Take the property's value, multiply by 80% for residential security or 70% for commercial, and subtract what is already owing on it. What is left is roughly what is available, between $20,000 and $5,000,000. Several properties can be added together, and the borrower does not have to be the owner — companies, trusts and sole traders — including start-ups, with everyone on title signing. Up to 80% on residential and 70% on commercial. Lower on large acreage, and LVRs may reduce on properties worth less than $800,000.
Why the bank is slow here, and we are not
A bank reads a labour-hire-shaped business with no realisable assets, concentrated debtors and thin percentage margins, and it prices and limits accordingly. Growth shows in the accounts as a widening working-capital deficit, which is the correct reading of the numbers and the wrong reading of the business.
It also wants two years of clean accounts and current lodgements, which a contractor in a growth phase frequently does not have, and it will take weeks — while payroll runs every Thursday.
We assess the property and the exit. The debtor ledger clearing, the contract running, a facility refinancing: any of those is an exit, and the answer comes on the first call.
What the money is used for
- Bridging payroll. Borrowed against property, repaid as the ledger clears.
- Mobilising a new contract. Crew, equipment and consumables before the first invoice.
- Equipment purchase. Machines a contract requires, bought outright.
- Clearing an ATO or super balance. Paid direct from settlement, which removes the directors' personal exposure.
- Carrying a lost contract's notice period. Wages through the wind-down while the business rebuilds the book.
- Buying a depot. A first mortgage over commercial premises.
From the call to the money
Tell us the deal
Amount, purpose, timing, the property and how the loan gets repaid. A Lending Manager gives you an indicative answer on that call — usually in minutes.
Minutes
Conditional approval
Photo ID, a rates notice and your most recent mortgage statement. That is the whole list, and it takes about fifteen minutes.
About 15 minutes
Funds released
As little as 24 hours from a clean, complete scenario. Paid where you tell us — to your account, or straight to the ATO.
As little as 24 hours
What it costs
Priced per file, on the property, the position, the amount and the exit. No rate is published, because a rate with "from" in front of it is the best file's number. How it is priced, and every fee that exists.
Questions we get from this industry
Can I borrow against my home to pay my cleaners?
Do you take security over my contracts or invoices?
We are mobilising a new site and have no cash for it. Can you fund that?
Do you need financials, payroll reports or aged debtors?
We have unpaid superannuation. Does that rule us out?
How fast can it settle if payroll is Thursday?
Is there a minimum trading period or turnover?
Can we repay as the ledger clears?
Not a call centre. Tell us the property, the amount and what the money is for, and you will have an indicative answer on the call. 1300 93 83 87, Mon–Fri, 8:30am – 5:30pm Melbourne time.
The assessment is the same in every one of them: property, purpose and exit.
See if you qualify in sixty seconds
Three short questions, no credit check to apply and no financial statements. A Lending Manager reads it and calls you back with a real answer — not a call centre, not an algorithm.
That's the HomeSec Advantage.
Reviewed by Matt Hempel, National Credit Manager