West Palm Beach commercial bridge loans for value-add.
Access equity or finance a project before permanent financing. Flexible commercial bridge across property types, with terms up to 24-36 months and loan sizes up to $10M. Palm Beach County skips the Miami-Dade transfer surtax but carries the highest mainland homeowners insurance and a millage stack that varies by city. Business-purpose only, and every structure is set in underwriting.
Typical figures, subject to underwriting and market conditions. Not a commitment to lend.
How it works
Use bridge capital to reposition an asset, buy out a partner, or stabilize before a refinance. We move quickly on commercial deals that banks find too time-sensitive. When the asset is stabilized, we refinance you out of the bridge and into long-term permanent debt, which we also place in house, so you have a clear exit from day one.
Does Palm Beach County charge the Miami-Dade documentary stamp surtax?
No. Palm Beach County pays the plain statewide rate: 70 cents per $100 of consideration on the deed and 35 cents per $100 on the note or mortgage. The 45-cent discretionary surtax on top of that is a Miami-Dade County charge only. Do not size a Palm Beach closing off Miami-Dade transfer cost assumptions.
Is a Palm Beach County commercial rehab subject to the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone rules?
No. Palm Beach County sits outside the HVHZ. The Florida Building Code assigns High-Velocity Hurricane Zone wind design and product-approval requirements to Miami-Dade and Broward counties only. A Palm Beach repositioning or value-add project builds and rehabs under the general Florida Building Code wind provisions, a materially different, lower-cost product set for windows, doors, roofing and shutters than a Miami-Dade or Broward asset. Confirm scope with your architect and the local building department before you budget the envelope work.
What should I model for insurance and property tax carry on a West Palm Beach commercial bridge deal?
Insurance is the number that catches people off guard: Palm Beach County's average homeowners premium including wind ran $6,323 as of March 2026, the highest of any mainland Florida county. That is above both Broward ($6,136) and Miami-Dade ($5,975). Palm Beach also sits in the state's highest-litigation region, with a 27.27 percent litigated-claims share for the Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade group, against 8.16 percent in the rest of Florida. That residential table is a directional read, not a commercial quote, so get an actual commercial premium before you underwrite. On the tax side, county-wide millage plus a municipal rate runs from roughly 14.7 mills in Jupiter or Wellington to over 20 mills in West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach, before fire and library adders, so the same asset can carry a very different tax bill depending on which city it sits in. When the deal is ready to term out, our CRE permanent program places the long-term debt in house.
What do impact fees and permit review timelines look like for new construction or expansion in Palm Beach County?
For a single-family-scale project in unincorporated Palm Beach County, the county's own 2026 impact fee schedule totals roughly $15,900 for a 2,000 to 3,599 square-foot home. That breaks down to schools $7,905.90, roads $5,597.40, parks, fire, public buildings, libraries and law enforcement making up the rest; the City of West Palm Beach total on the same basis is about $14,700. Statutory permit review clocks apply county-wide: 30 business days for a permit on a single-family home under 7,500 square feet, 60 business days for larger residential, multifamily up to 50 units, or commercial under 25,000 square feet, with a 10 percent fee reduction for each business day the reviewing agency runs late. Budget the fee line explicitly. It is one most pro formas miss.
If my Palm Beach County asset has a condominium component, what does the structural integrity law mean for the deal?
Any residential condominium building three or more habitable stories tall must complete a milestone inspection by the year it turns 30 (or 25, if the local building department has set that shorter trigger) and a structural integrity reserve study every 10 years. Associations can no longer vote to waive reserves on the items that study covers. That regime is a large part of why the county's condo value index fell 5.8 percent year over year and 17.0 percent off its late-2023 peak while single-family values fell only 0.6 percent, with the steepest declines in the older garden and mid-rise stock. An association behind on its milestone inspection, reserve study or funding is commonly non-warrantable for agency financing, which is exactly the gap a bridge fills, but you need the association's inspection and reserve position before you underwrite, not after.
Is West Palm Beach's finance-sector growth a reason to underwrite office or mixed-use demand more aggressively?
Be careful with that story: it is not showing up in the jobs data. Financial activities employment in the West Palm Beach metro division fell 2.7 percent year over year to 46,600 in June 2026, and total nonfarm grew only 0.2 percent. The sectors actually adding jobs are education and health services (up 2.1 percent, to 123,200) and professional and business services (up 1.5 percent, to 139,900), while leisure and hospitality, financial activities and construction all shrank. Underwrite a Palm Beach office or medical-adjacent repositioning off that growth, not off a finance-relocation narrative the payrolls don't support right now.
How much equity do I need in a West Palm Beach commercial property to bridge it?
About 25% of value has to stay in the deal. Commercial bridge runs up to 75% LTV, up to $10,000,000, on a purchase, a refinance, or a cash-out. On a $4,000,000 West Palm Beach asset that is up to $3,000,000 of proceeds (4,000,000 x 75% = 3,000,000), whether that is new money into a purchase or equity pulled out of one you already own. Value is set in underwriting off the asset's own numbers, not a broker's pro forma, and in this county the insurance and millage lines move that value more than most people expect. Subject to underwriting.
Do I pay principal every month on a West Palm Beach bridge loan?
No. Bridge is interest-only for the term. That keeps the monthly number down while a repositioning is underway, which matters on a Palm Beach County asset where carry is heavy before the business plan lands: the county-wide base millage plus a municipal rate runs from roughly 14.7 mills in Jupiter or Wellington to over 20 mills in West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach, and the insurance line here is the highest on the Florida mainland. Interest-only does not mean cheap, it means the loan is not amortizing, so the exit has to be real. Subject to underwriting.
How long do I have to execute in West Palm Beach before the bridge comes due?
Terms run up to 24 to 36 months. Size it to the work, not to optimism. If your Palm Beach County plan depends on a condominium association finishing a milestone inspection or a reserve study, or on a permit cycle for envelope work, those calendars are outside your control and they are the ones that blow a short term. Bridge or cash-out both run on the same clock, and the loan is repaid from a sale or from permanent financing at the end of it. Subject to underwriting.
Local rules move. Every tax rate, fee, ordinance and market figure here comes from a primary source and carries the date we read it, and we correct them as the rules change. Where a number is mid-change or we could not verify it, we say so rather than guess. Before you commit a budget, confirm anything that drives it with the city or county, and talk to your attorney or CPA on questions of law or tax.
Published by USA Mortgage Funding, LLC, NMLS #152588. Researched from primary sources by our team, drafted with AI assistance, and every figure checked against its source before publishing. Where an answer rests on a public record, that record is linked under it. Figures read on 2026-08-13.
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