The self-managed superannuation loan market is worth A$6 billion to $7 billion, with about 30,000 funds currently borrowing to buy property, according to Westpac.The head of the SMSF trustee division at Westpac, Sinclair Taylor, said Westpac and St George had a combined SMSF loan book of around $2 billion, giving it a big market share.The group's average loan size is around $300,000 and the maximum loan-to-valuation ratio is 80 per cent.Speaking at an SMSF Professionals' Association of Australia conference in Sydney yesterday, Taylor said he expected demand to increase.Taylor said: "As cash rates come off and equities remain volatile, a lot of trustees are looking for the security of property. That is what they tell us when they come in to talk about a loan."We are also seeing more brokers selling the product. There is very strong growth in applications from mortgage brokers."The Australian Securities and Investments Commission highlighted borrowing as a concern in a review of advice to trustees of self-managed funds published in April. One of its main concerns was the increase in geared investment strategies in SMSFs.ASIC said it saw evidence of several inappropriate arrangements involving loans, such as long-term loans being arranged for older investors, and borrowing being used to acquire a single asset for the fund. It also found that trustees were not always advised of the high upfront costs of a geared property investment.But Taylor said that with around $6 billion of loans in a sector with total assets of $500 billion there was a risk of over-stating the problem of poor advice.However, he said, Westpac worked with brokers and trustees to make sure they understood the complexities of the process.He said most lenders provided "vanilla" loans and would not support unusual demands."We lend on residential and general commercial property. The assets must be a going concern. We do not lend on anything like agricultural property."A partner at the law firm Kemp Strang, Vicky Grey, said there were always some trustees who wanted to push the envelope, such as when two or more self-managed funds wanted to acquire a single property.Grey, who was also speaking at the SPAA conference, said banks liked to keep their SMSF loan deals straightforward.Taylor said default levels were very low. He said: "We view it as specialised lending and limit the number of people who can sell it. We make the trustees jump through hoops before they can have a loan."