Bridgit’s chief commercial officer has said shifting tax rules and slower sales are rewriting the bridging playbook.
Bridgit chief commercial officer Stephen Doyle believes the federal budget’s negative‑gearing overhaul and a slower, more crowded property market are turning bridging loans from a niche fix into a frontline solution.
Doyle said the starting point was that the new tax settings and lender responses had made the lending environment materially harder to navigate for ordinary borrowers, increasing the need for brokers to translate policy into practical pathways.
“First and foremost, I think where the broker actually sits in this whole transaction is bridging becomes a real solution for the broker’s end client,” he said.
“What tends to happen in this environment is when lending becomes more complex, the consumer is confused, they don’t understand.
“So, the opportunity for the broker has increased significantly. They can now make what is complex sense, that’s the role, and put them into solutions.”
Doyle said that, on the ground, Bridgit was seeing more buyers commit to their next purchase first, only to find that their assumptions about an easy sale no longer held up.
“Due to the fact that property is taking longer to sell, we are finding in the market that borrowers and property investors have already committed to purchase a property,” he explained.
He added that many owners were now taking longer to secure a buyer for the home they were leaving.
“We’re finding investors and just consumers in general have actually committed to the purchase, and they are taking longer to actually sell their existing property,” he said.
“Because when there were five properties on the market in a certain area, now there are 20 properties in that certain area. It is going to take longer.”
Against that backdrop, Doyle framed bridging as a way to manage timing risk.
“What bridging does is it provides a solution straight away, and when you see markets of this nature, we find that bridging is the prime solution for them to be able to solve that problem,” he said.
New‑build tilt reshapes strategy conversations
The 2026–27 budget proposed to confine ongoing negative gearing to newly built investment properties, with Doyle stating these changes would force deeper strategy conversations.
“Every scenario is different, and when a broker actually sits down with their actual clients, they’re going to have to look at their whole portfolio, what they’ve got, and what’s the best solution for them to actually do moving forward, that can be filed as an investment,” he said.
He added that bridging could play a tactical role in helping clients secure stock.
“So, from a bridging solution to go into the new build, you can actually look at this environment to use this as a tool to assist with the actual purchase,” Doyle said.
‘An opportunity to grow their share’
Asked whether the tax changes posed a threat to activity, Doyle said he viewed it as a chance for brokers to deepen their role and expand volumes by leaning into specialised products.
“I think it’s an opportunity to grow their share,” he said.
“I think with brokers understanding the market as it is today, and when they can arm themselves with solutions like bridging finance, they can now really utilise this in a changing environment to make sure that they can actually embrace this opportunity moving forward.”
Doyle also urged the industry to think beyond a single product and consider the wider toolkit now available from bank and non‑bank lenders.
“I think what is really important is really the broker looking at this now as an opportunity and utilising some of the other product sets that are within the market to enhance their offering to the broker to the end customer,” he said.
[Related: Investor tax overhaul to redirect loan demand]
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