Does Anyone do Bridge Loans Anymore???

I'm hoping some of you in the AR community might have recent experiences with interim financing, or bridge loans. When I started out in 2005, as most of you know, the money spigot seemed to be on pretty much full-blast, everywhere you looked. In fact, the brokerage where I worked at the time offered an in-house bridge loan to clients who wanted to close on a new home before the sale of their existing home had closed. The market was extremely competitive, multiple offers were the rule and not the exception, and contingent offers were a waste of time. The lending office inside my brokerage also made a nice quick & easy chunk of change by doing them, but that's another story.

It became a non-issue during and after the downturn, in my mind for a couple of reasons: Move-up buying came to a near standstill (at least in my neck of the woods) because most folks didn't have any, or enough equity to sell. And secondly, it seemed like all lenders, be they huge institutions or small/ boutique private lenders, didn't just tighten up the purse strings- they tied the purse closed with them, put a padlock on it, put the purse in a safe, locked the front door and put up a "gone fishing" sign outside the building.

Over the last 18 months I've had an increasing number of calls from past clients, especially ones who bought between '07-'10, and they are ready for more space, or to transition from their first condo to a single family home. Many of their families have grown. They have some equity back, and want to start looking for a bigger home, a better location, etc. The catch-22 is that the market is hot again, inventory is tight in my area, and multiple offers are back (much to my chagrin, ugh!). When I explain to my friends & past clients that they would really need to have the sale of their home closed before making an offer on another, and that they might need an interim place to live, I can see the that I've just thrown a big, sad wrench in to their latest & greatest plan. If I could find a reputable lender making affordable bridge loans out there to low-risk, credit-worthy clients, I'd be thrilled (and I'd be closing several transactions)! Thoughts?