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Why are fewer bridging finance applications coming forward?

ended 24. September 2026

Bridging loan applications reported by participating BDLA members fell 26.3% to £7.3bn in Q2 2026, while completions declined 15.2% to £1.6bn.

Bridging Loan Directory is examining what sits behind the decline: fewer property transactions being attempted, deals becoming harder to fund, or transactions taking longer.

We would welcome first-hand evidence from bridging brokers, lenders, property investors, developers and conveyancers:

• Are you seeing fewer proposed transactions, or more deals stalling after the initial enquiry?

• What is preventing progress: purchase prices, valuations, borrowing costs, insufficient equity or uncertainty over selling or refinancing?

• Are delayed sales tying up money that would otherwise fund the next purchase?

• Have you recently rescued, postponed or abandoned a transaction? What changed and what was the outcome?

• If your activity is increasing, what is driving that—and why might your experience differ?

Please provide a recent anonymised example where possible, including the property, funding requirement, obstacle and eventual outcome. Distinguish delays from deals that have fallen through, and include a comparison period for any figures.

Responses of around 100–200 words on the points most relevant to your experience would be ideal.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Tony SanchezVerified
Founder at Bridging Loan Directory
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Nouran MoustafaVerified
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
We’re not necessarily seeing less appetite for bridging. What we are seeing is more friction between enquiry and completion. Deals that might previously have moved quickly are being scrutinised much harder around valuation, exit strategy and the borrower’s overall leverage.

The exit is particularly important. A bridge can solve the immediate funding problem, but if the refinance or sale at the other end is uncertain, the cost of getting that assumption wrong is significant. That is making both borrowers and lenders more cautious.

We recently worked on a property transaction where the funding structure had to be reconsidered as the case developed. Rather than forcing the original route through, we looked at alternative structures and the realistic exit before proceeding.

I think that distinction matters. A reduction in completions doesn’t automatically mean demand has disappeared. Some transactions are simply taking longer because everyone involved is asking more questions
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Adam StilesVerified
Managing Director at Helix Financial Partners
A combination of inflationary pressures on the cost of goods and labour, with a large amount of conservatism from valuers, with a sprinkling of nervousness from credit due to market volatility and harder to demonstrate refinances has created the perfect storm for deal killers.
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Iain ThompsonVerified
Director at Evolve Finance
The 26.3% drop in BDLA applications isn’t driven by a lack of borrower appetite, but by transaction stalling at the initial enquiry stage. Extreme valuation volatility and high borrowing costs are causing widespread price standoffs between buyers and sellers, choking off the pipeline before formal applications are submitted.

The core obstacle is exit uncertainty. Because mainstream retail sales are taking much longer to complete, developers cannot recycle their capital, which completely freezes their ability to fund deposits for the next purchase. Deals are falling through during due diligence rather than simply delaying.

We recently saw a £500,000 commercial-to-residential bridge enquiry abandoned. An unexpected 8% down-valuation left an insurmountable equity gap that the client couldn't fill with their capital still tied up in a completed scheme, proving that frozen exits are actively killing new transaction pipelines.