Skip to main content
Skip to article
On this page
BC Real Estate Glossary

Bridge Financing

Also known as: Bridge loan · BC bridge financing · Interim financing · Closing-gap loan

A short-term loan covering the gap between the day your down payment is due and the day the money from your old home actually arrives. Lenders typically fund it for 90 to 120 days and want a firm sale on the outgoing property.

Bridge financing is short-term lending that covers the timing gap when a BC buyer's NEW home closes BEFORE their existing home's sale releases cash. The bridge loan is sized to the closing-day net proceeds the seller will receive (sale price less remaining mortgage, commission, legal, payout penalties, Property Transfer Tax (PTT) on a replacement, etc.) and is funded for the days between the new-home completion and the existing-home completion. Typical BC bridge facility: 90-120 days at a contract rate of prime + 2% to prime + 4%, plus a setup fee of $250-$500. Bridge loans are typically only available where both the new-home purchase contract AND the existing-home sale contract are firm (subjects removed) — the lender wants visible repayment.

Bridge financing is not a statutory product. It is not. Bridge is entirely a lender-policy product, and not every lender offers it — many credit unions and B-lenders won't. If the existing home is unsold (only listed) at the time of the new-home closing, the bridge product is usually a "purchase plus improvements" or a HELOC against the existing home, not a true bridge — different underwriting, different costs. Ask your mortgage broker to confirm the lender's bridge product BEFORE you write subjects to remove on the new-home offer; some buyers have lost a deposit because they assumed bridge was always available and the lender declined post-firm.

Related terms

  • CMHC Default Insurance Cap — The maximum home purchase price eligible for CMHC default mortgage insurance — raised from $1,000,000 to $1,500,000 effective December 15, 2024.
  • OSFI Mortgage Stress Test (B-20) — OSFI Guideline B-20 requires federally-regulated lenders to qualify mortgage borrowers at the greater of (a) the contract rate plus 2 percentage points or (b) the Bank of Canada qualifying rate (5.
  • Closing Day (Completion) — Closing day, or completion, is when the buyer's lawyer registers the title transfer at the BC Land Title Office and the money reaches the seller.
  • Subject to Sale of Buyer's Property — A condition in a BC offer that makes the purchase depend on the buyer selling their existing home first.
  • Vendor Take-Back Mortgage (VTB) — A mortgage where the seller lends the buyer part of the purchase price and registers it as a charge on title.

See also

Cite this fact

Use any of these formats. Codex content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 — attribution required.

BibTeX — LaTeX, academic
@misc{bronsonjob-cmhc_insurance_cap,
  author       = {Job, Bronson},
  title        = {{CMHC default insurance maximum purchase price}},
  howpublished = {BC Real Estate Codex},
  year         = {2024},
  url          = {https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#cmhc.insurance_cap},
  urldate      = {2026-08-02},
  note         = {Fact ID: cmhc.insurance_cap, version 2.}
}
APA — Press, journalism
Job, B. (2024). CMHC default insurance maximum purchase price. *BC Real Estate Codex*. Retrieved 2026-08-02, from https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#cmhc.insurance_cap
Plain link — Slack, email, Twitter
CMHC default insurance maximum purchase price — Bronson Job PREC, BC Real Estate Codex (2026-08-02). https://www.bronsonjob.com/codex#cmhc.insurance_cap

Fact id: cmhc.insurance_cap · v2 · machine-readable: /api/v1/facts/by-id/cmhc.insurance_cap.json

Sources: CMHC · Government of Canada
Verified sources (2)· re-verified 2026-08-02Click to expand

Every claim on this page is sourced to a primary government, regulator, or industry-association URL. We re-verify quarterly; the verification dates below show when each source was last confirmed against the live government page.

Fact ID: cmhc.insurance_cap · v2View in Codex →
Spot an issue? Report an inaccuracy · How we verify

License: This definition is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Cite as: "Bridge Financing", BC Real Estate Glossary by Bronson Job, https://www.bronsonjob.com/glossary/bridge-financing.

Bronson Job PREC, REALTOR® at Momentum Realty Inc. — Langley + Fraser Valley + Greater Vancouver
Bronson Job PRECREALTOR® · Momentum Realty Inc.GVR Member #6015742 · FVREB Member #FJOBBR