How bridge loans work in BC: prime + 2-4% rates, the firm-sale rule, real costs on a Metro Vancouver move, and when a HELOC or subject-to-sale offer is a better fit.
Written by Hamidreza Etebarian on and updated on
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Bridge financing in BC lets you close on a new home before the sale of your current one funds, by lending you the down payment against your existing equity. With Canada's prime rate at 4.45% in May 2026, most bank bridge loans price at prime plus 2% to 4%, so expect a rate between 6.45% and 8.45%, plus a setup fee of $400 to $500 and legal costs of $700 to $2,500. The loan is short, usually 90 to 120 days, and the math only makes sense if your current home already has a firm, subjects-removed sale in place.
This guide covers how bridge loans actually work in BC, what the big banks require, the real cost on a typical Metro Vancouver move, and the alternatives when a bridge does not fit.
A bridge loan is short-term financing that covers the gap between two closing dates. You sign to buy a new home that closes, say, June 15. Your current home closes July 5. Your down payment for the new place is locked up in the equity of the old place until the sale funds. The bridge loan advances that down payment on June 15 and gets paid back in full on July 5 from the proceeds of the sale.
The key point: a bridge is not a second mortgage and it is not the full mortgage on the new home. It only covers the equity gap, usually for a few weeks. You still arrange a regular mortgage on the new property; the bridge sits beside it.
Most BC buyers using a bridge are moving up or sideways within the same market. A Burnaby family selling a townhouse to buy a detached home in Coquitlam. A North Vancouver couple downsizing into a Lonsdale condo. Any time the new closing lands before the old closing, a bridge is the standard tool.
The math is simpler than it sounds. The bridge loan equals your home equity minus closing costs on the sale, capped at the down payment you owe on the new home.
Take a Metro Vancouver example. You are selling a townhouse for $1,050,000 with $420,000 left on the mortgage. After realtor commission and legal fees, you net roughly $585,000 in equity. You are buying a detached home for $1,650,000 and putting 20% down, so you need $330,000 at closing. Your closings are 21 days apart.
The bridge loan is $330,000 for 21 days at, say, 7.45% (prime + 3%). Interest works out to roughly $1,415. Add a $400 setup fee and $1,000 in extra legal costs, and the total cost of the bridge is about $2,815. Painful, but small relative to a $1.65M purchase, and far cheaper than walking away from a home you want.
If your closings are only a week apart, the interest cost drops to a few hundred dollars and the fixed setup and legal fees become the bulk of the bill.
Every Big Six bank in Canada offers bridge financing, but the requirements are stricter than most buyers expect. The two non-negotiables:
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You will also need to provide both contracts: the signed sale agreement on the old home and the signed purchase agreement on the new one. The bank uses the sale price minus your existing mortgage to confirm the bridge amount is covered.
TD caps standard bridge loans at 90 days. RBC and the others typically write 90 to 120 days, with longer terms case by case. If you need six months or more, you are likely looking at a private lender, not a bank.
Bridge financing only works if the timeline lines up. The most common mistake in BC is making a subject-free offer on a new home before the existing home is sold firm. If your old place sits on the market for two months, you have no bridge access and no way to fund the closing on the new one.
The safer order in a balanced or buyer's market:
In a hot seller's market, the order sometimes flips. Buyers feel pressure to lock the new home before they have a sale on the old one, often using a subject-to-sale offer on the new place. That works if the seller accepts subjects, which they often will not when there are competing offers. Watching daily inventory and days-on-market data on the Zealty market stats page is the cheapest way to figure out which order applies in your specific neighbourhood right now.
Banks are not the only option, and they are not always the right one. Three real alternatives in BC:
If you have a home equity line of credit already in place on your current home, you can draw from it to cover the new home's down payment, then pay it back when the sale closes. Rates are usually prime + 0.5% to prime + 1%, so meaningfully cheaper than a bridge. The catch: you have to set up the HELOC well before listing. Most lenders will not approve a new HELOC once your home is listed for sale.
Private lenders write bridges without requiring a firm sale, and they will go longer than 120 days. The price is much higher: rates of 9% to 12% are common, plus lender fees of 1% to 2% of the loan amount. A private bridge is a tool for buyers in unusual situations, foreclosure scenarios, or estate purchases, not a default choice for a normal move.
Skip financing entirely and write the offer on the new home as subject to the sale of your current one. The seller can keep marketing and accept a backup offer, but you avoid bridge interest. This works in cooler markets where sellers will accept conditional offers, less so in tight markets.
A bridge loan does not change the BC Property Transfer Tax owed on the new purchase. PTT is calculated on the new home's price regardless of how the down payment is funded. On a $1,650,000 home, PTT runs roughly $30,000 (1% on the first $200K, 2% on $200K to $2M).
The first-time home buyer PTT exemption does not help here, since by definition you already own a home. The exemption applies only to buyers who have never owned a principal residence anywhere in the world.
One useful note for the timing: the lawyer handling both transactions needs to be looped in early. Most BC real estate lawyers can run a sale and purchase plus a bridge through a single conveyance, but they need both contracts and the bridge instructions at least two weeks before closing. Ask your realtor for a lawyer who has run bridge transactions in BC before; the workflow is different from a standalone purchase.
If the new home is a strata property, factor in the strata estoppel certificate and any special assessments before committing to a closing date. The Zealty Strata Browser covers 14,000+ BC strata buildings and is the fastest way to surface red flags before you write the offer.
Three situations where a bridge does not solve the problem:
Bridge financing is the right tool when you have a firm sale, a small closing gap, and a bank that already holds your mortgage business. On a typical Metro Vancouver move with closings two to three weeks apart, the all-in cost is usually $1,500 to $3,500. That is the price of buying the right home without lining up two simultaneous closings, which is rarely possible in practice.
Get a mortgage broker involved before you list. They can shop the bridge alongside the new mortgage, confirm the sequencing works for your specific lender, and flag any deal-killers before you write the first offer.
When you are ready to look, start your search on Zealty with full MLS pricing history, sold-to-previous-price ratios, and saved searches that email you the moment a matching listing hits the market. For a sense of how today's BC market is moving, the Metro Vancouver housing market page shows live inventory, sales, and median prices by property type.
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