How to Find the Best Bridging Loans in the UK

When it comes to finding the best bridging loans in the UK, there’s no single, off-the-shelf ‘best’ product. It’s about finding the right loan for your circumstances, with suitable T&Cs, competitive pricing, and from the right lender.

Consider what you want to achieve and when from your property investment to understand what a good loan looks like for you. Key factors to think about include:

• Speed: How quickly do you need the funds? All lenders will claim they can perform to tiny timescales, but only a select few actually can. This is where a specialist bridging broker’s knowledge can really help..

• Total cost: It’s easy to fixate on rates as your sole metric for finding the best bridging loan, but always consider all costs involved, including fees, deposit requirements and how interest is charged.

• Flexibility: Pin down exactly what you need, whether that’s an open-ended term, or flexibility if your scheme overruns, and ask lender terms from the outset. 

• Exit strategy: A concrete exit strategy will open up more bridging loan options for you, potentially with better rates and terms.

• Property: Likewise, high-demand property types in high-demand areas pose less risk to lenders, so will attract more loan options. 

• Borrower: First-time developer, bad credit history, or seasoned property professional–all of these factors affect your bridging deal.
  
  

How to Compare Bridging Loan Lenders

The fastest, most informative way to compare bridging loan lenders in the UK is by using Brickflow’s bridging loan calculator. 

Enter the details of your property and search loans from 150+ lenders instantly. You can compare like-for-like details on rates, fees, deposit, net loan and, crucially, which lenders will actually accept your application.

What to look for when you compare bridging loans:

• Net Loan Size: The bigger the net loan, the smaller your deposit requirements. Forgoing a lower rate for a higher LTV (Loan to Value) can free up your capital to invest elsewhere, or complete sooner. 

• Rates: Rates vary depending on property type, borrower, LTV, lender criteria, loan term and more. Always compare the entire loan, rather than presuming the lowest rate is the best deal.

• Costs: Ask lenders to be upfront about their costs, including arrangement fees, early exit fees, and any other added admin costs.

• Appetite for different deal types: Commercial conversions might be one lender’s bread-and-butter, while another may focus on ‘fix-and-flip’ loans. Brickflow only shows you lenders who can fund your property type.

• Exit flexibility: If your exit will be an asset sale, but completion date is still to be set, you could benefit from an open-ended bridging loan. Some lenders may also accept multiple exit scenarios, providing you can show all options are viable.

• Speed of completion: Many factors determine the speed a lender can approve a loan, including their funding lines, backlogs on their loan books and whether the loan is regulated by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).

• Transparency and communication: How quickly a lender responds to initial inquiries and how open they are about fees, costs and T&Cs is key.
  
  

Bridging Loan Rates, Fees & Hidden Costs

Lenders love to draw in borrowers with headline interest rates, but that rarely tells the full story. Two loans with similar rates can have very different overall costs once fees and loan structure are taken into account. 

Every bridging loan will involve some, or all, of the below fees and costs: 

• Arrangement fees: Usually charged as a percentage (up to 2% typically) of the gross loan. Typically added to the loan rather than paid upfront

• Legal fees: Your own solicitor as well as the lender’s legal costs

• Valuation fees: Costs vary depending on property type, value, and complexity, and differ significantly between desktop valuations and full site inspections.

• Admin or monitoring fees: Heavy refurbishments, or projects, with multiple build stages will incur fees for monitoring the development progress.

• Exit fees: Relatively uncommon in bridging finance; instead lenders might set a minimum loan term between 1 and 6 months. The only time you normally see them is on heavy refurb / quasi-development loans.

Bridging loan terms are typically between 1 and 24 months and you should only pay interest for the time you have the loan. Note that some lenders will charge a full month’s interest even if you exit the loan part-way through the month. Make sure your lender charges daily interest rather than monthly.

Interest can be fixed or variable. Fixed rates provide certainty, while variable rates change in line with base rates. A variable rate means your borrowing costs could be higher or lower than expected at the outset.

Better rates, fees, and exit conditions can often be negotiated for experienced borrowers, borrowers with strong financials, lower LTVs, and generally lower-risk deals.

Speed, flexibility & Exit Strategies

Experienced investors focus on lender-fit as much as loan costs; any savings from a cheaper loan are quickly lost if the lender can’t execute on the type of deal, in the right timeframe.

Speed

Some lenders can complete deals faster than others because of how decisions are made and funded. 

Lenders that have their own capital, sign off credit internally, and regularly complete similar deal types can issue terms quickly, instruct valuations, and progress legals without waiting for external approvals. 

Others rely on credit committees, funder sign-off, or slower legal panels, which can add days or weeks once the application moves beyond the Decision in Principle (DIP) stage. 

An unregulated bridging loan, on an uncomplex property transaction, using a desktop valuation and an experienced solicitor can complete in as little as 72 hours.

Flexibility

Flexibility is about how a lender treats the grey areas: non-standard property, short leases, heavy refurbishment, multiple borrowers, bad credit, or multi-exit strategies. It’s also about what happens mid-loan–whether extensions are realistic, whether partial repayments are allowed, and how the lender reacts when timelines slip. You should know these details from the get-go.

Exit strategies

When it comes to your exit, lenders will price, structure, or restrict the loan according to the level of risk. For example, if your exit is refinancing on a BTL mortgage, having a DIP in place is important to a lender.  

How to Avoid Bad Bridging Lenders (Red Flags)

At Brickflow, we work with the best bridging loan lenders on the market, who will always be upfront and accountable, often acting more like an investment partner than a lender. 

Not all bridging finance lenders are as scrupulous though. To help you avoid bad bridging lenders, here are some key red flags to look for:

• Lack of transparency:
  Costs, leverage limits, or conditions are unclear at the outset, meaning important terms might only emerge after valuation or once solicitors are instructed.
  
  
• Unrealistic headline rates:
  Eye-catching rates are promoted but only apply to low-risk, low-leverage scenarios that don’t reflect most real transactions.
  
  
• Poor communication:
  Slow response times early on in the process are unlikely to improve as things progress. The best bridging loan lenders are open and accessible to answer any questions you have, even before committing to a deal.
  
  
• Fees disclosed late:
  Additional admin, monitoring, legal, or minimum interest costs appear partway through the process, altering the true economics of the deal.
  
  
• Rigid exit requirements:
  Not necessarily a red flag in all deals, but where a lender insists on a single, fixed exit with limited tolerance for timing changes it can make extensions or alternative exits difficult and/or expensive.
  
  

Going Direct vs Brokers vs Comparison Platforms

There are different options for securing bridging finance. We’re looking at the pros and cons of each, and why a comparison platform like Brickflow helps you secure the best bridging loan UK wide.

Going direct to lenders

Pros: Direct communication with the lender, clear accountability, and no intermediary fees. Can work well for simple, repeat deal types where you already know the lender’s criteria.

Cons: Limited to a single lender’s product and criteria. Approaching multiple lenders to find a deal requires multiple separate applications just to compare options. This is repetitive, time-consuming, covers only a small handful of lenders, and rarely uncovers the most competitive deal.

Using brokers

Pros: Brokers offer a gateway to specialist lenders that you can’t deal with directly, and can steer deals to the right lenders (those with new funding lines and a healthy appetite for new loans; the best fit for your project type). They also help structure applications efficiently and handle all the paperwork. They’re particularly valuable for complex assets, tight timelines, or non-standard exits and can use their industry relationships to negotiate better terms.

Cons: Outcomes depend heavily on how good your broker is, their network and market coverage, and you typically see only the lenders the broker chooses to approach.

Using comparison platforms

Pros: The Brickflow platform allows you to search the breadth of the market in seconds, compare net loan, fees, and criteria on a like-for-like basis, and eliminate the risk of pursuing unsuitable lenders. It offers you absolute transparency on costs and enables you to find the best bridging loan lenders for your deal.

Cons: Zero, other than your relationship with your lender ‘friend’ down at the bank may suffer.

Combined with a broker, you get full market transparency plus specialist advice, so you can be 100% confident you’re getting the best bridging loan on the market.