Open and closed bridging loans are very similar; they are mainly used when looking to purchase a new property before selling the current one. The difference between the two is that in an open bridging loan you have not exchanged contracts to sell your first property and in a closed bridging loan you have exchanged contracts. This is important because once contracts have been exchanged; the likelihood of the sale not going through is extremely low. For this reason closed bridging is a lot less risky for lenders, whereas an open bridging loan is a lot more risky.