A bridge loan Seattle move-up buyers use is short-term financing secured by the home they are leaving, taken out to fund a down payment before that home sells and repaid from the sale proceeds. It solves a timing problem. It does not solve a qualifying problem, and it comes with a maturity date that does not care what the market is doing in month nine.
I wrote a separate guide on buying before you sell in Seattle, and that page is about the decision: whether to buy first at all, and which of the four paths your situation supports. This page is about the product itself. If you have already decided a bridge is on the table and you want to know what it actually costs, how it is structured, and what happens at the end, that is what follows.
The people who bring me this conversation are usually in a specific spot. There is a house in Wallingford or on Capitol Hill they want, they have real equity in a place they own, and the offer they can write without touching that equity is not competitive. A bridge converts locked equity into cash on a deadline. Whether that is worth the price depends on numbers you can know in advance, which is the point of putting them here.
One framing note before the mechanics. Bridge financing is a non-agency product. It is not made under Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac guidelines, so there is no standard rulebook, no uniform disclosure of terms, and no consistency between lenders. Everything below describes how these loans are commonly structured. Availability, pricing, and terms are set by the individual lender, vary by program, and are subject to change.
What a Bridge Loan in Seattle Actually Is
Strip away the marketing and a bridge loan is three things at once.
It is a lien on the departing home. The loan is secured by the property you are selling, not by the one you are buying. That is what lets you access the equity before a sale closes. On a home you own free and clear, the bridge sits in first position. On a home with an existing mortgage, it usually sits behind that mortgage in second position, and the amount available to you is the equity above the existing balance, less the lender's cushion and less what selling will cost you.
It is short term by design. Terms commonly run in the range of six to twelve months, and some products are shorter. It is not a loan you are meant to keep. The lender prices it knowing it will be repaid quickly, and the structure assumes an exit.
It is repaid by an event, not by amortization. A traditional mortgage is retired by three decades of payments. A bridge is retired by the closing of your sale. Nearly all of the principal comes back in one lump sum out of the settlement statement on the departing home. That single dependency is the whole risk profile of the product.
Two related things are often called bridge loans and are not. A home equity line of credit opened on your current home does a similar job at generally lower setup cost, but it is revolving, it is usually variable, and it has to exist before you list. A cash-out refinance replaces your first mortgage entirely, which is a poor fit for money you intend to return in ninety days. Both are covered further down.
Some lenders also offer move-up programs that are not bridges at all. Instead of lending you money against the departing home, they change how the departing payment is treated in underwriting so you can qualify carrying both. Those programs are structured differently by every lender that offers one, and it is worth asking whether the solution being described to you is a loan or an underwriting accommodation, because the cost and the risk are not the same.
What a Bridge Loan Costs in Seattle, Line by Line
The honest answer to what a bridge costs is that it has more cost components than a first mortgage and each one is set by the lender. What I can give you is the full list, so nothing on your term sheet is a surprise and you know what to ask about.
| Cost component | How it is commonly structured | What to ask the lender |
|---|---|---|
| Origination or commitment fee | A percentage of the bridge amount, charged at closing | Is it earned at closing or refunded if the bridge is repaid early |
| Rate premium | Priced above a standard first mortgage, reflecting the short term and the exit risk | Is the rate fixed for the full term or does it move |
| Second set of closing costs | Title, escrow, recording, and often an appraisal on the departing home | Which of these can be paid from bridge proceeds rather than out of pocket |
| Interest carry | Often interest only during the bridge window, sometimes deferred or reserved | Do I pay monthly, or is interest accrued and settled at payoff |
| Extension fee | Charged if the departing home has not sold by maturity | How many extensions are available, at what cost, and on what conditions |
| Prepayment terms | Some non-agency products carry a minimum interest period or a prepayment charge | If my house sells in forty days, what do I owe |
That last row matters more than people expect in a fast neighborhood. Well-kept Craftsman homes in Wallingford have been going in roughly eight to fourteen days in recent seasons. If your departing home sells in five weeks and your bridge carries a minimum interest period of several months, you have paid for time you did not use. Ask before you sign, not after.
All cost structures described here are general, current as of August 2026, and subject to change. Bridge financing is not an agency product, so pricing, fees, prepayment terms, and availability are set by the individual lender. Get a written term sheet and compare the total cost of the bridge against the closing costs on the departing sale, which I itemize in my guide to closing costs in Seattle.
Interest Reserves and the Payment You May Not Make Every Month
This is the structural feature most people have never heard of, and it changes how the loan feels.
Because a bridge is meant to be temporary, many products do not expect you to write a monthly check. Instead the lender may hold back a portion of the loan proceeds at closing to cover the interest for the expected term, which is called an interest reserve, or allow interest to accrue and be settled in full at payoff. Either way, your out of pocket cash flow during the bridge window is lower than the loan cost suggests.
Two consequences follow, and they cut in opposite directions.
The helpful one is real. Carrying two housing payments plus a bridge payment is a genuine cash flow strain, and a structure that defers the bridge interest removes that strain during the months you are moving, staging, and listing.
The unhelpful one is that a reserve reduces your net proceeds. If the lender holds back several months of interest, that money is not available for your down payment. When you calculate what a bridge delivers, work from net proceeds after the reserve and after fees, never from the gross loan amount. I have seen a buyer plan an offer around a number that was ten percent higher than what actually funded.
A third point, and the one that surprises people most. Deferring the payment does not remove it from your ratios. Whether or not you write a monthly check, most lenders count the bridge obligation in your debt to income calculation alongside the payment on the departing home and the payment on the new house. A bridge makes the cash easier. It does not make the qualifying easier, and in most structures it makes qualifying harder.
Want to know whether a bridge is even necessary in your case?
Send me your current mortgage statement, your association dues if you have them, and a realistic sale price on the home you are leaving. I can usually tell you within a day whether your file clears carrying both payments on its own, which would save you the entire cost of a bridge, or whether the equity genuinely has to be unlocked first. There is no application involved.
Call (206) 778-5825 or send me a note and I will get back to you the same day.
How a Bridge Loan Unwinds, and What Happens If Your Seattle Home Does Not Sell
The unwind is the part of the product that gets the least attention and deserves the most.
In the ordinary case it is clean. Your departing home closes, the settlement agent pays off the existing first mortgage and the bridge from the sale proceeds in lien order, and whatever remains after commissions, the state real estate excise tax, and the rest of the seller costs comes back to you. The bridge disappears. You are left with one mortgage on the new house, which is the loan you actually shopped for.
The problem case is a maturity date arriving before a sale does. There are four ways out, and it is worth knowing all of them before you need one.
Reduce the price. The fastest and usually the cheapest. Every month of carrying costs on two properties plus bridge interest is a real number, and it is often larger than the price reduction that would have moved the house in week three. Price the departing home to sell rather than to test the market. That advice sounds obvious and is ignored constantly.
Extend the bridge. Available on many products at a fee, and sometimes conditioned on the property being actively listed or on a price change. Ask about extension terms at the beginning, when you have leverage, rather than at the end, when you do not.
Refinance the bridge into something longer. If you are going to keep the departing home rather than sell it, the bridge can sometimes be replaced with permanent financing. If that home becomes a rental, the calculation changes substantially, and my rental property financing guide covers converting a primary residence into an income property. Note that this is a different loan with its own qualifying, its own appraisal, and its own closing costs.
Sell into a weaker number. Sometimes the market has simply moved. This is the outcome the product is exposed to, and it is why lenders underwrite the departing home's marketability rather than just its value.
Marketability is where Seattle gets specific. A well maintained Craftsman in Wallingford and a floating home on the Eastlake side of Lake Union are not the same resale risk. The floating home buyer pool is small and the financing is portfolio rather than agency, which lengthens timelines in a way I describe in my guide to floating home financing in Eastlake. A South Lake Union condo in a building with a pending special assessment or high investor concentration can face project review problems for its buyer, which slows the sale that is supposed to retire your bridge. I underwrite the exit before I underwrite the loan.
What a Bridge Loan Seattle File Has to Clear in Underwriting
Three tests, in the order they usually cause trouble.
Equity depth. The bridge amount is limited by the value of the departing home less the existing mortgage balance, less the lender's cushion, and less anticipated selling costs. In Washington those selling costs include the state real estate excise tax on the seller side, which is graduated by sale price and lands hard on an appreciated central Seattle sale. Deep equity is not a preference here, it is the collateral.
Debt to income carrying everything. As noted above, most structures require your ratios to work with the departing mortgage, the bridge obligation, and the new mortgage all counted. On a South Lake Union condo where association dues alone frequently run several hundred to well over a thousand dollars a month, those dues count too. This is the test that most often ends the conversation, and it is the reason to run the numbers before you write an offer rather than after. The document set is the same one I walk through in mortgage pre-approval in Seattle.
Reserves after closing. Both loans typically require documented liquid reserves, and bridge proceeds generally do not count toward the reserve requirement on the new purchase. Neither do funds you have not yet received. That distinction surprises someone every month.
One more underwriting note specific to the new purchase. If the departing home sale closes before or at the same time as your purchase, the departing payment comes out of your ratios once the sale is documented as closed, which usually means a settlement statement. A signed contract alone is generally not enough. Sequencing the two closings is often worth more than any product decision, and it costs nothing.
Three Cheaper Alternatives to a Bridge Loan Seattle Buyers Should Price First
I do not talk many people out of bridges, but I talk most people through these three before we get there, because two of them are materially cheaper and one of them is free.
A home equity line opened before you list. Generally lower setup cost than a bridge, and it does the same job of converting equity into a down payment. It carries one hard scheduling rule that is not negotiable: most lenders will not open a new line on a property that is actively for sale, and some will freeze an existing line the moment the listing hits the NWMLS. Plan the line first and list second and you have the option. Reverse the order and you do not. The comparison against a first mortgage cash out is in my guide to HELOC versus cash-out refinance in Seattle. A line is usually variable, so a long selling window carries more rate exposure than a fixed term bridge.
A recast after the sale, with a larger loan up front. This one is underused. You take a normal mortgage on the new house with whatever down payment you can manage without touching the departing equity, then after your old home sells you apply a large lump sum to principal and ask the servicer to re-amortize the loan at the same rate. The payment drops as though you had put the money down at closing, without a refinance and without bridge fees. It does not help you win the offer with a bigger down payment, which is the tradeoff, and not every loan permits it. The mechanics are in my guide to recasting versus refinancing in Seattle.
Qualifying carrying both, with no product at all. The free option, and the one people skip because it sounds unlikely. Plenty of dual income households in Eastlake, Wallingford, and Capitol Hill may qualify carrying two payments without any structure, which turns an underwriting problem into a cash flow decision. It costs one conversation to find out, and if the answer is yes you have saved every dollar a bridge would have charged.
The fourth path, writing a contingent offer, is a negotiating decision rather than a financing one. It costs nothing and it weakens your offer, and how much it weakens it depends on the listing. That belongs with your broker and is covered on the buy before you sell page alongside the other three.
Bridge Financing Is Not an Agency Loan, and That Changes What You Are Reading
Worth saying plainly, because it explains why researching this product online is frustrating.
Conventional mortgages are written to published guidelines. Anyone can look up the occupancy rules, the loan to value maximums, and the reserve requirements, and they are the same at every lender that delivers to the agencies. Bridge loans have no equivalent. Every lender that offers one has designed it, priced it, and set its own term, its own maximum combined loan to value, its own extension policy, and its own prepayment terms. Two bridge quotes are frequently not comparable line for line.
Practically, that means three things. Get the term sheet in writing. Ask specifically about maturity, extension, and prepayment, because those three determine your downside. And do not assume a national article about bridge loans describes the product available to you in King County, where the 2026 conforming limit for a one-unit property is $1,063,750 and a large share of move-up purchases sit above it in jumbo territory, where terms vary even more.
Non-agency products do not carry agency terms or protections. Availability, pricing, and underwriting vary by lender and are subject to change. All financing is subject to qualification, credit approval, and underwriting.
How I Decide Whether a Bridge Loan Fits Your Seattle Move
Five questions, in this order. The order is what makes it useful.
Can you qualify carrying both without any product? If yes, stop. You do not need a bridge and you should not pay for one.
Is there time to open a line of credit before listing? If the move is months out, a line is usually the cheaper instrument. If you are looking at a house this weekend, that door is closed.
Does the file clear with the bridge counted? Departing mortgage, bridge obligation, and new mortgage together. This is a yes or no that takes an afternoon, and it should happen before you write.
How marketable is the departing home, honestly? Not what it is worth. How fast it sells, at a price that clears the bridge and the excise tax and the commissions. A Craftsman on a quiet Wallingford street and a floating home are different answers.
What does the term sheet say about month nine? Maturity, extension cost, and prepayment. If the lender will not put those in writing, that is your answer about the lender.
A bridge is a good tool for a specific situation: deep equity, a marketable departing home, a purchase you want that will not wait, and ratios that hold with everything counted. It is an expensive tool for a buyer who is using it to stretch. The difference between those two buyers is visible in the numbers well before anyone signs anything, which is why this conversation belongs at the beginning of your search rather than in the middle of a negotiation. If the equity you are bridging sits in a central Seattle home, the neighborhood context behind those values is on my Eastlake home loans page and my Wallingford home loans page.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bridge Loans in Seattle
How long does a bridge loan last?
Terms commonly run in the range of six to twelve months, and some products are shorter. A bridge is designed to be repaid from the proceeds of your departing home sale rather than paid down over time, so the term is set around an expected sale rather than around an amortization schedule. Because bridge financing is a non-agency product, the specific term, any extension options, and the cost of an extension are set by the individual lender and are subject to change. Ask for those terms in writing before you close.
Does a bridge loan payment count against my debt to income ratio?
In most structures, yes. Even when the product defers the interest or funds it from an interest reserve so you do not write a monthly check, lenders commonly count the bridge obligation in your ratios alongside the payment on the home you are leaving and the payment on the home you are buying. A bridge eases cash flow during the transition. It generally does not make qualifying easier, and adding a third obligation often makes it harder. Requirements vary by lender and are subject to change.
What happens if my house does not sell before the bridge loan matures?
There are four practical outcomes: reduce the asking price, pay to extend the bridge if the lender permits an extension, refinance the bridge into longer term financing if you decide to keep the property, or sell at a lower number than you planned. None of them are free, and the cheapest is usually the price reduction taken early rather than the extension taken late. This is why extension terms are worth negotiating at the start of the loan rather than at the end, and why the marketability of the departing home matters more than its appraised value.
Is a HELOC cheaper than a bridge loan?
A home equity line of credit generally carries lower setup cost than a bridge and can fund the same down payment, so it is often the more economical instrument when there is time to arrange it. The scheduling rule is strict: most lenders will not open a new line on a home that is actively listed, and some freeze an existing line once a listing goes live. A line is also typically variable, so a longer selling window carries more rate exposure than a fixed term bridge. Terms vary by lender and are subject to change.
How much can I borrow on a bridge loan?
The amount available is driven by the equity in the home you are leaving. Lenders start from the property value, subtract the balance on any existing mortgage, apply a maximum combined loan to value that they set themselves, and account for what the sale will cost you, including commissions and the Washington real estate excise tax on the seller side. If the product holds an interest reserve, that is subtracted from your proceeds as well. Work from net proceeds after fees and any reserve rather than from the gross loan amount when you plan a down payment. All figures are subject to qualification and underwriting.
Can I avoid a bridge loan and still buy before I sell in Seattle?
Often, yes. Three alternatives are worth pricing first: a home equity line opened before the departing home is listed, a normal mortgage on the new home followed by a recast once the sale closes and a lump sum is applied to principal, and simply qualifying while carrying both payments, which more Seattle households manage than expect to. A contingent offer is a fourth path, though it is a negotiating decision rather than a financing one and it weakens the offer. Which of these your file supports can usually be determined in a single conversation.
Price the Bridge Before You Need It
Tell me what you own, what you owe on it, and roughly what you are shopping for. I will run your ratios carrying everything at once, tell you whether a bridge is actually required or whether a line of credit, a recast, or nothing at all would do the same job, and give you the questions to put to any lender who hands you a bridge term sheet. If your file does not clear, I would rather you hear that from me in September than from an underwriter in November.
Julie A Jones, NMLS 177001 · Movement Mortgage, NMLS 39179. Subject to credit approval. Rates and terms subject to change. This is not a commitment to lend. Bridge financing is a non-agency product and does not carry agency terms or protections. Availability, pricing, fees, maximum combined loan-to-value, term length, extension policy, prepayment terms, and interest reserve structures are set by the individual lender, vary by program, and are subject to change. Home equity line, cash-out refinance, recast, and departing residence guidelines are set by the investor and the servicer and are also subject to change. Contingency terms, listing price decisions, and the purchase and sale agreement are negotiated with your broker. Real estate excise tax is set by Washington statute and administered by the Washington State Department of Revenue; confirm current rates and brackets for your sale. Conforming loan limits are set annually by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Movement Mortgage does not provide tax or legal advice; the tax treatment of a sale is a question for your CPA and contract questions are for your attorney or broker. All examples and figures on this page are illustrative, current as of August 2026, and subject to change, and all financing is subject to qualification and underwriting. This article is for educational purposes and is not financial, tax, or legal advice.
Julie A Jones · Movement Mortgage
2701 Eastlake Ave E, Unit 105, Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 778-5825
Julie A Jones, NMLS 177001 · Movement Mortgage, NMLS 39179 | www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org. Licensed by the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions. All loans subject to credit approval. Rates and terms subject to change without notice. This is not a commitment to lend.