Anyone ever taken a bridging loan to buy a new property?

[Anothernamebitesthedust]

Just that. Is it a terrible idea? What circumstances would you consider it?

Reason: we might need to move quickly-ish for work reasons. It will be a permanent move. Our house will take a while to sell - it’s big and unusual, not your standard three-bed semi. Don’t think we can afford to service two mortgages.

Appreciate any thoughts, either way.

If you have used one, what circumstances led you to do so?

And also - if it’s not too personal - how much did it cost you. (On what sort of loan over what period.)

TIA

I could be wrong but I think bridging loans are no longer offered on consumer mortgages because there’s too great a risk of falling into arrears.

You can rent out your house and have it on the market for sale at the same time (although that will restrict its appeal to many tenants), and rent your new home until your own house is sold.

We did it many years ago just so we could complete on our our purchase one week before selling so we could get the empty house woodwormed, but we had a buyer and had already exchanged contracts. The property market is so bad at the moment that you might take months to sell and with property prices being so much higher these days it could cost a fortune if anyone would consider it at all.

Hmmm that’s interesting. I had a quick google earlier and they did seem to be an option. But every company I looked at seemed...a bit dodgy?!

I think renting (our house and a new home) is what we’ll end up doing....just exploring options really.

Yes it would be for 12 months or so. I think it’s a no.

Bridging loans cost much more than a mortgage payment, don’t they? If you can’t afford 2 mortgages, how can you afford a bridging loan? Sounds very high risk if your house might take ages to sell.

Bridging loans don’t have a monthly payment - you pay it all one lump sum at the end. But yes, it’s still risky. I think we’ve now ruled it out.

we did but only for two weeks between exchange and completion, as we were selling our first buy house and buying second one we didn't have the ten percent required for exchange, this was a long time ago and we needed £4000 we paid back £4500 two weeks later, bridging loans are better for very short term use

Bridging loans are very difficult if not impossible to get now

Please don't even consider it. I used to be in banking, and I've seen customers come really unstuck doing this, the interest payments rack up massively. I'm going back many years here, I don't know even if it's possible to get them now.

We bought off a woman who had taken a bridging loan. She nearly lost her mind as a few sales prior to us had fallen through, the interest was about 1k a month.
We got the house very cheap in the end aas she was desperate, worked for us but I did feel fir her, she made a very expensive mistake taking one out.

Ok thank you all. It just all sounds to risky and stressful so we’re going to give it a miss.