Bridging Loan/Equity Release & Purchase of New Home

I have a fair bit (75-80%) equity in my house, and our combined income would probably give us maybe €200k of a mortgage on top of what is currently outstanding on my home loan.

We're hoping to buy a new home in the area (Meath) but given current market conditions I'm afraid to sell/sign contracts on my home before closing on the new property— it's so hard to find somewhere to buy in our area that there would be a risk of becoming homeless with a pile of cash in the bank from the sale, which wouldn't exactly be ideal...

We also won't have a deposit for a new home anytime soon without some equity release from my home. I would also ideally like to keep & rent our current home, as the rental income would mean it would easily pay for itself.

Is it actually possible to get an equity release mortgage or bridging loan these days? During the Celtic Tiger the banks were throwing top-up mortgages at people every 6 weeks, but now it seems near impossible to get one as far as I can see.

southofthelee

Unfortunately, bridging is no longer available for regular folk from mainstream banks.

This makes trading up incredibly difficult.