Bridge Loan Real Estate: What Homeowners and Investors Actually Pay (Federal HMDA Data, 2025)

What a real estate bridge loan is, in both of its meanings

A bridge loan is short-term credit that covers the gap between a payment you have to make now and the money that will pay it off later. In real estate that gap shows up twice.

The homeowner’s bridge loan. You own a home, you want to buy the next one, and you have not sold the first. The loan borrows against the equity in the home you own, so the down payment is not waiting on the sale. Lenders that publish the product describe it in the same terms. Leaders Credit Union lists interest-only payments, a 6-month term and no prepayment penalty. Consumers Bank offers “up to 85% of the equity in your current home” for the purchase, with interest-only payments “for up to 12 months.” The loan is repaid from the sale of the first home. Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide (B3-4.3-14) accepts a bridge or swing loan as a source of funds if it is not cross-collateralized against the new property and the lender documents “the borrower’s ability to successfully carry the payments for the new home, the current home, the bridge loan, and other obligations.”

The investor’s bridge loan. An investor buys a property fast, often a house that needs work, with a 12 to 24 month loan that is interest-only and ends in a balloon payment, and then sells it or refinances into a long-term rental loan. This is the same market as hard money and fix-and-flip lending, which our hard money loan rates page covers in full for loans of 36 months or less. Lender pages use the word “bridge” for it too: Lima One’s Bridge Plus and Kiavi’s bridge loans are investor products with terms of 12 to 24 months.

The two bridge loans compared

Why the homeowner bridge loan is nearly missing from federal data

HMDA is the only public loan-level record of US mortgage rates, and the investor bridge is in it. The homeowner bridge mostly is not, and the reason is in the rule. Regulation C lists “Temporary financing” among the transactions its requirements do not apply to (12 CFR 1003.3(c)(3)). The official interpretation says a loan is temporary financing if it is “designed to be replaced by separate permanent financing extended by any financial institution to the same borrower at a later time,” and then gives this example, comment 3(c)(3)-1.i: Lender A extends credit “in the form of a bridge or swing loan to finance a borrower’s down payment on a home purchase,” the borrower pays it off with the sale of the existing home, and “The bridge or swing loan is excluded as temporary financing under § 1003.3(c)(3).”

The investor loan is treated the other way. The same interpretation (comment 3(c)(3)-1.v) describes a nine-month loan to let an investor buy, renovate and resell a home and concludes it “is not temporary financing under § 1003.3(c)(3) merely because its term is short.” Two more limits apply to both: a lender that originated fewer than 25 closed-end mortgage loans in either of the two preceding years does not report (12 CFR 1003.3(c)(11)), and HMDA carries no points or fees for these loans in a usable form.

The result is lopsided: the 2025 file holds 9.8 investor loans for every homeowner loan (our arithmetic, below). That is why the numbers below are labeled by how we built the group, not as “the bridge loan market.” We cannot tell from the data how much of the gap is the exclusion and how much is that the product is simply uncommon.

What the homeowner short-term loans in HMDA look like (2025 and 2024)

HMDA has no “bridge” field, so we took the closest group the fields allow: originated loans, owner-occupied (principal residence), not made for a business or commercial purpose, closed-end, 1 to 4 units, not a reverse mortgage, with a loan term of 24 months or less. We streamed the FFIEC nationwide files for 2024 and 2025 (originated, owner-occupied) on October 7, 2026 and computed everything from them (our arithmetic; the extracted rows are in the data folder). Loans that report a note rate of 0 are left out of the rate statistics (186 in 2025, 152 in 2024).

Homeowner short-term loans in HMDA (term 24 months or less)

The typical rate fell 0.5 point in a year, the same direction as the investor market. The structure matches the product lenders describe: 63.9% of the 2025 loans ran exactly 12 months (4,066) and 15.6% exactly 6 months (992), most are interest-only with a balloon, and the median loan-to-value ratio was 72.9%. About 72% were first liens (4,565) and 28% subordinate liens (1,794). A subordinate lien is the classic way to borrow against a home you plan to sell without touching its first mortgage: those loans had a median of $125,000 and a median rate of 8%.

Who made the homeowner short-term loans, by lender type (2025)

We classified each lender with its federal agency code in the FFIEC institution record (code 7 is a non-depository institution; code 9, the CFPB, is split by whether the name contains “bank”), the same method as our hard money page. On the same $285,000 loan, interest-only, the bank median of 7.5% costs $1,781.25 a month and the non-bank median of 9.25% costs $2,196.88, a gap of $415.63 a month or $2,493.75 over six months (our arithmetic).

The largest reporters of homeowner short-term loans, 2025 (names as filed with HMDA)

458 lenders reported at least one such loan in 2025 and the five largest made 19.4% of them (our arithmetic), so this is a long tail of local banks and credit unions. The largest states by count were Florida (563 loans, median 6.95%), Texas (480, 7.75%), Iowa (436, 7%) and Nebraska (414, 7.5%); California’s 326 loans had a 9.49% median. Two patterns matter for a homeowner who wants a bridge loan:

• The cheapest short-term money is at local banks and credit unions. Hills Bank and Trust, Citizens First and Pinnacle reported medians between 6.375% and 7.35%, below the national HELOC median of 7.5%.
• The lenders that look like bridge specialists are non-banks and are reported as cash-out refinances. Flyhomes Mortgage reported 326 loans in 2025, 325 of them cash-out refinances, with terms of 11 or 12 months, at a 9.99% median. Flyhomes describes its “Equity for Down Payment” as “a bridge loan product.” HMDA cannot tell us the 326 loans are that product, but the profile fits. New American Funding (78 loans, all 12 months, 10%) and American Heritage Lending (111 loans, all cash-out, 107 at 12 months, 9%) look the same. Cash-out refinances were the most expensive purpose among the short-term loans: 1,073 loans at a 9.375% median, against 7.5% for 4,087 home purchase loans.

The investor bridge loan, on the same 24-month cap

Our hard money page measured investor loans of 36 months or less: 68,319 loans in 2025 at a 9.99% median. To compare like with like, we re-cut the same extract (same filters, rows unmodified) at 24 months or less, which is where the lender products called bridge loans sit, and show only what that page does not.

Investor and homeowner short-term loans, term 24 months or less

The investor group is 9.8 times as large in loans and 12.3 times in dollars, and the typical investor paid 2.4 points more (our arithmetic). The striking line is the last pair: banks and credit unions charged a 7.5% median to both kinds of borrower. The premium is the non-bank lender’s, not the borrower’s occupancy. An investor’s median loan-to-value ratio was 70% (the loan against value as reported, often purchase price plus rehab or after-repair value), no higher than a homeowner’s. Investor lender-by-lender and state-by-state tables, with Kiavi’s 19,477 loans and the 47-lender year-over-year comparison, are on the hard money loan rates page; Florida’s county detail and usury limits are on our Florida page.

How bridge loans are priced: the rate is only part

HMDA gives a note rate. A bridge loan’s cost is the rate over a short term plus a fee that does not shrink with the term. The published terms show what lenders put in writing.

Bridge loan pricing and structure that lenders publish (read October 7, 2026)

Four things follow from the table and the HMDA medians (our arithmetic where numbers are combined):

1. The fee is a percentage of the loan. One point is 1% of the loan, which Easy Street’s own FAQ says in so many words. A 1% origination fee on the $285,000 homeowner median is $2,850. Two points on the $265,000 investor median are $5,300.
2. Short terms make points weigh more. Six months of interest on $285,000 at 7.75% is $11,043.75; adding the $2,850 fee takes the cost to $13,893.75. Over six months that is about 9.75% annualized, against the 7.75% note rate. The People Driven loan amortizes on a 240-month schedule, so interest-only is an approximation of its payment.
3. Flyhomes’ $4,000 on $100,000 is 4% of the loan. Its page says similar programs “often charge 2-2.5% of the full home value,” and about $25,000 on a $1 million home. These are the company’s own comparisons; actual fees vary.
4. The investor structure is the same arithmetic. On $265,000 at the 10.15% median, interest-only costs $2,241.46 a month, $26,897.50 over 12 months; two points add $5,300, for $32,197.50 in the first year, about 12.15% a year on the loan. That is before the document fee.

Bridge loan vs HELOC, home equity loan and cash-out refinance

A homeowner who wants the down payment before the sale has other ways to get equity out. The 2025 HMDA medians, on the same owner-occupied, non-business-purpose, 1 to 4 unit basis:

Equity options for a homeowner, originated loans (HMDA 2025 and 2024)

Each has a cost that the median hides. The cash-out refinance replaces your first mortgage, so its 6.75% median applies to the whole balance, not only the cash taken out; the Freddie Mac weekly 30-year average was 7.28% on October 1, 2026, up from 6.15% on December 31, 2025, so a new refinance today does not price like the 2025 loans in the table. A HELOC is an open-end line of credit, not a closed-end loan, and the bank prime rate was 7.00% on October 2, 2026 (6.75% on December 31, 2025). The bridge-type loan costs 0.25 point more than the median HELOC and 1.0 point more than the median cash-out loan, and what it buys is speed, a short term and a payment you can interest-only. If you qualify for a HELOC on the home you are selling, the 2025 record says it was slightly cheaper in rate for the same equity, though a HELOC that must be opened, appraised and drawn before you make an offer may not fit a short closing window.

What a borrower can do with this

1. Decide which loan you need. A homeowner buying before selling and an investor buying a flip are in different markets with different prices, and a page that mixes them (as many of the top results do) will quote you the wrong range.
2. Homeowners: price the local bank or credit union first. In 2025 banks and credit unions made 70% of the short-term homeowner loans at a 7.5% median, against 9.25% for non-banks. Ask for the note rate, the origination fee, the term and any prepayment penalty in writing, and ask what happens at month six or twelve if the house has not sold.
3. Compare against a HELOC and cash-out in the same quote request. The 2025 medians were 7.5% and 6.75%. Use your own lender’s numbers, since 30-year rates are 7.28% as of October 1, 2026.
4. Convert points into a rate. Divide the points by the term in years and add the result to the note rate. A short term makes a 1% fee behave like a rate premium of 2 points on a 6-month loan.
5. Investors: use the non-bank medians as the market range. In 2025 a rate at or below 9.25% was in the cheapest quarter of the 24-month investor market and one at or above 10.99% in the costliest; the non-bank median was 10.45%. The step after the bridge is covered in how to refinance a DSCR loan and the rental loan record in DSCR loan rates; the lender-by-lender comparison is in the best fix-and-flip lenders of 2026.

The lenders in the box below make investor bridge and rental loans, not homeowner bridge loans. Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through its button. The HMDA figures above are the same either way, and Kiavi’s own 2025 results are on the hard money page (Kiavi review, Lima One review). Visio Lending makes 30-year rental loans, the refinance after an investor bridge, not short-term loans. If you are a homeowner, start with your own bank or credit union.

FAQ

Loan-level data: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, nationwide originated owner-occupied loans for 2024 and 2025 (request URLs in the data file), downloaded October 7, 2026, and the investor extract from the hard money loan rates page cut at 24 months; lender names and agency codes from the FFIEC filer lists and public institutions API; coverage rules from 12 CFR 1003.3 and 1003.4 and the Supplement I official interpretations (eCFR, read October 6, 2026); loan-purpose, occupancy and field definitions from the FFIEC public LAR data fields; agency-code definition from the FFIEC 2025 HMDA Filing Instructions Guide; Fannie Mae Selling Guide B3-4.3-14; bank prime rate (DPRIME) and Freddie Mac 30-year average (MORTGAGE30US) from FRED; lender terms from the web pages of Leaders Credit Union, People Driven Credit Union, Consumers Bank, Flyhomes, Easy Street Capital, Lima One Capital and Kiavi, read October 7, 2026. All percentiles, medians, shares, changes and payment figures are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents and the law, not investment, legal or tax advice, and not a loan offer.