Bridging Finance
The UK podcast on short term property lending, hosted by Georgina. Every episode is a plain English walk through one part of the bridging market: what a bridge costs, how lenders size it against the property and the exit, and how borrowers use it to move at the speed a deal demands. Start with the fundamentals of bridging finance, then follow the numbers.
Here is the idea the whole show turns on. A bridging loan is short term funding secured against property, built for the moments a mortgage cannot serve: a chain that breaks, an auction deadline, a property no mainstream lender will touch until the works are done, or a finished scheme whose development loan has done its job. The loan runs from 1 to 24 months, around a 12 month average, interest is charged by the month and usually rolled up or retained, and the whole facility is repaid in one move when the exit lands. Every bridge is underwritten backwards from that exit.
The numbers we work from are the published industry data, not guesswork. Bridging Trends puts the average monthly rate at 0.88 percent, with strong cases from around 0.5 percent, and average leverage at 60 percent loan to value. The ASTL puts the industry loan book at 10.3 billion pounds. Average completion runs at 55 days, and a well prepared case completes in 2 to 3 weeks. This is the show for the people who use that market: homeowners in a broken chain, auction buyers, landlords refurbishing stock, developers exiting a build, and the brokers and solicitors around them. We cover the full set of bridging loan products in plain terms:
- Residential bridging: chain breaks, buying before you sell, and the regulated end of the market where a loan on your own home is referred to an authorised firm.
- Auction finance: funding built around the 28 day completion convention, arranged from the day the hammer falls, including lots no mortgage lender would take.
- Refurbishment bridging: light and heavy works funding, typically up to 75 percent of day one value, exiting to a sale or a remortgage at the improved value.
- Development exit: the bridge that repays a development facility at practical completion and funds the sales period on a finished scheme.
- Fast bridging: what genuinely makes a case complete in weeks rather than months, and what speed costs.
- Second charge bridging: raising capital behind a cheap first charge mortgage you do not want to disturb.
We are an arranger and introducer of finance, not a lender. We place and structure bridging across the generic lender camps that fund this market: specialist bridging lenders, challenger banks, and private lenders. For context, the Bank of England base rate is 3.75 percent, and every quote turns on leverage, the charge position, the property, the exit evidence and the borrower, so treat figures on the show as indicative market data, never an offer.
Every figure is grounded in real sources: the Bank of England on rates, the industry trackers Bridging Trends and the ASTL on pricing and volumes, and RICS on the valuations lenders rely on. Bridging Finance sits within the Construction Capital family, which arranges finance across the wider UK property and development market. The aim is simple: help you understand what a bridge should cost, bring your case to market well, and get from enquiry to completion at the pace the deal needs.
Hosted by Georgina at bridgefinancing.co.uk, with written analysis by Matt Lenzie. New episodes land quarterly, with the occasional bulletin when the rate cycle or the market data shifts.
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Bridging finance is short term property lending that moves at the speed a transaction demands, and in 2026 it is a mainstream market: a loan book of 10.3 billion pound...
Latest Episodes
Bridging Finance: 2026 Market Outlook | Rates, Products and the 55 Day Completion
Bridging finance is short term property lending that moves at the speed a transaction demands, and in 2026 it is a mainstream market: a loan book of 10.3 billion pound...