Land bridging: buy the site now, on numbers that hold

Land deals move at the seller's speed, not your bank's. A land bridge funds the purchase in weeks — but land is the security lenders price most cautiously, so the planning position and the exit decide everything about what you can borrow.

Why land is priced cautiously

A finished property has rent, comparables, and a deep market of buyers; a field has potential. If a lender ever had to sell the security, land takes longer and sells to fewer people — so advances are lower and pricing is higher than property bridging across the board. Expect loan-to-values meaningfully below what finished property commands, with bare land without planning at the most conservative end and consented sites treated most generously. That is not lender squeamishness; it is the honest arithmetic of the security, and your own numbers should be built on the same caution.

The planning position is the price

• With planning consent — the strongest case: value is evidenced by the consent, the exit (build it, or sell to someone who will) is legible, and the widest lender pool competes for it.
• Without planning, bought for planning gain — fundable, at lower advance: the lender is being asked to share planning risk, and the realistic exit timeline is the application process, not your optimism about it.
• Agricultural and amenity land — the narrowest market. Occupancy ties, use restrictions and covenants all bear directly on what the security is worth and who will lend on it; establish them before you agree a price, not after.

Exits that actually work

As with all bridging, the loan is only as good as its repayment route (why the exit is the whole deal). For land, the credible exits are: development finance drawing down once consent and contracts are in place; sale of the consented site at its uplifted value; or refinance where the land becomes part of a wider funded scheme. "We'll get planning and see" is not an exit — and a bridge with a term shorter than the realistic planning timeline is a structural mistake we see often and will not let you make. Sometimes the honest answer is a longer term at the outset, sometimes a smaller advance, and sometimes — said plainly — don't buy this site with borrowed money.

What to bring

The site and the agreed price; the planning position, precisely — consent, application in progress, or hope; any conditions, covenants or ties on the title; your intended exit and its realistic timetable; and how much of your own money is in. From that we pre-underwrite the case the way the credit committee will read it, and place it with the lenders who actually do land — a shorter list than the marketing suggests, and one worth knowing before the deadline is close.