Case Study: $4M Bridge Loan on Three Beverly Hills Parcels With No Prepayment Penalty

The Deal That Walked in the Door

We are Commercial Lending Solutions, a commercial mortgage brokerage based in Los Angeles, California (CA), and this one was in our own backyard: three contiguous parcels on a prime street in Beverly Hills 90210, an assembled estate development site in one of the most expensive zip codes in America. The owner, a local Los Angeles investor, came to us with the classic estate-land problem. The private loan that financed the assemblage, made by a well-known LA-based bridge lender back when the parcels were acquired in 2022 for a combined $8 million, was maturing, and the incumbent lender had issued a payoff demand. The eventual takeout came from a New York private debt fund.

Commercial Lending Solutions specializes in land bridge loans and estate-collateral financing for owners across Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, and this 90210 assignment was exactly that kind of deal.

Raw land produces no income, and no-income collateral plus a maturing loan is a combination that shrinks the lender pool fast. The owner did not want to fire-sell an $8 million-plus assembled site to meet a maturity date. They needed time, and a lender who would buy them that time at a price that preserved the economics of the eventual exit, whether that turned out to be a sale to a spec builder, an entitlement play, or construction financing on a new estate.

What Made It Hard

• No cash flow. Vacant estate land services no debt. Whatever loan replaced the maturing one had to fund its own interest payments.
• A hard maturity date. The incumbent private lender had issued a payoff demand. The clock was running.
• Exit flexibility was worth real money. A prepayment penalty on a loan the owner might repay in month four would have quietly cost tens of thousands of dollars. The structure had to stay open.

How We Ran the Process

Trevor Damyan, a California-licensed real estate broker (DRE #02244836), placed this loan knowing estate land in 90210 is a national capital story, not a local one. The lenders most aggressive on trophy Los Angeles collateral right now are New York credit funds, and that is where this deal landed: a New York private debt fund that specializes in high-value collateral in trophy submarkets. They issued a term sheet in early February, we negotiated a markup within days, and the borrower signed on February 13, one day after the revised version was issued. From first term sheet to signed deal took five days. The closed structure:

• $4,000,000 in proceeds, sized to exactly 50% of the parcels' minimum $8,000,000 as-is appraised value, enough to pay off every lien on the property, cover closing costs, and return equity to the owner
• A prefunded $180,000 interest reserve covering six months of payments, so the land carries itself with no monthly out-of-pocket burden
• 12-month interest-only term with a 6-month extension option for a 0.25% fee, matching the realistic window for the owner's exit
• 30-day term SOFR + 5.34%, floored at 9.00%, with a 2% origination fee, market pricing for non-cash-flowing trophy land
• No prepayment penalty of any kind. The owner can repay in full the day a sale or refinance closes, keeping every exit path free
• Limited recourse, with the personal guaranty confined to bad-boy acts plus a carry guaranty covering debt service, taxes, and insurance

The loan closed in Q1 2026 and the maturing private loan was paid off in full.

"Vacant land scares off most lenders because there is no cash flow to point to. Once you solve basis and carry, a prefunded interest reserve and a real appraisal, even non-income land closes at institutional speed."

Why We Won This One

Land bridge lending is a specialist's market, and the specialists care about two things: basis and carry. At 50% of appraised value, the lender's basis in three contiguous Beverly Hills parcels was unassailable; contiguous assembled parcels on a single prime street are worth more together than apart, and everyone at the table knew it. With six months of interest prefunded from proceeds plus a carry guaranty behind it, the lender never had to worry about how a vacant site makes its payment. Solve basis and carry, and even no-income collateral gets financed at institutional speed. Being based in Los Angeles helped too: we could speak to the street, the comps, and the spec-builder demand for assembled 90210 sites from firsthand knowledge, not a Google search.

For the borrower, the detail that mattered most was the open prepayment. Bridge borrowers consistently underweight this. A 9% loan you can exit in month five with no penalty is often cheaper in real dollars than an 8% loan with a six-month interest guarantee. When your exit date is uncertain, pay for flexibility, not for the headline rate.

Is This Structure Right for Your Deal?

If you own valuable land or estate property with a maturing loan, or you want to pull equity out of a free-and-clear site without selling it, this is a market we work in every week. We arrange land loans, bridge loans, and hard money takeouts from a network of more than 1,000 capital sources, including the debt funds that compete for trophy-market collateral.

Apply for bridge financing or call us at 310.708.0690 to talk through your property.

Trevor Damyan

Commercial Mortgage Broker, Commercial Lending Solutions | CA DRE 02244836

Trevor Damyan is a commercial mortgage broker at Commercial Lending Solutions with a background in structured finance at CBRE and Marcus and Millichap Capital Corporation. He specializes in bridge loans, construction financing, SBA programs, DSCR loans, and complex capital structures for investors and developers across all 50 states.

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