Development exit report · H1 2026

Croydon Development Exit Report, H1 2026

Who is lending to developers in Croydon, how many schemes are exiting their development loans, and how quickly new homes are selling. Built from Companies House charges, Land Registry sales and council planning data.

125
New development charges, 12 months to June 2026 (+30.2%)
49
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
63.1%
Live development book over 24 months old (60.6% nationally)
49
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (-47.9%)
Matt Lenzie
Written and reviewed by Matt Lenzie Founder & Principal Broker · 25 years arranging development finance · Reviewed September 2026
In short

Croydon's headline number is a change in direction: registered new-build sales declined 47.9% to 49 over the latest settled year. Behind it, development loans filed as repaid increased 32.4% to 49. 63.1% of live development loans here were over 24 months old at the end of June, 2.5 points above the national share, a direct read on how many schemes are past a normal build term. Planners approved 429 residential schemes in the last year, the next wave of exits.

Scorecard

Croydon at a glance

How each signal moved over the year, measured the same way for every location we report on.

SignalCroydonChangeBasisDirection
New development charges125+30.2%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months beforeUp
Development charges satisfied (exits filed)49+32.4%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months before; recent filings provisionalUp
Exit-type lending to developers510%bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companiesFlat
Live development book over 24 months old63.1%+2.5 ptsat 30 June 2026, compared with 60.6% across England and WalesAbove national
New-build sales registered49-47.9%settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months beforeDown
New developer and property companies653+10.7%SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register onlyUp
Companies House · development lending

Development lending and exits in Croydon

71 borrowers, 125 charges: that is the scale of new development lending in Croydon in the year to June 2026, compared with 96 charges a year earlier.

Repayments ran at 49 over the same 12 months, 0.39 for every new charge against 0.4 nationally. The local book is still growing faster than it clears.

Typical loan life on repayment: 19.3 months at the median, shorter than the 26.9 months of the prior year.

A charge is the security a lender registers at Companies House. It shows that a loan was taken and when it was repaid (satisfied), not how much was lent. Repayments are filed late, so the latest six months are provisional.

Croydon: development charges registered and satisfied by quarter, 2022 Q1 to 2026 Q2; faded bars are provisional because repayments are filed late
New development chargesSatisfied (loan repaid)
010203040New development charges, 2022 Q1: 12Satisfied, 2022 Q1: 52022New development charges, 2022 Q2: 14Satisfied, 2022 Q2: 10New development charges, 2022 Q3: 32Satisfied, 2022 Q3: 10New development charges, 2022 Q4: 18Satisfied, 2022 Q4: 11New development charges, 2023 Q1: 6Satisfied, 2023 Q1: 72023New development charges, 2023 Q2: 14Satisfied, 2023 Q2: 10New development charges, 2023 Q3: 11Satisfied, 2023 Q3: 11New development charges, 2023 Q4: 21Satisfied, 2023 Q4: 7New development charges, 2024 Q1: 29Satisfied, 2024 Q1: 82024New development charges, 2024 Q2: 22Satisfied, 2024 Q2: 9New development charges, 2024 Q3: 36Satisfied, 2024 Q3: 9New development charges, 2024 Q4: 19Satisfied, 2024 Q4: 10New development charges, 2025 Q1: 23Satisfied, 2025 Q1: 82025New development charges, 2025 Q2: 18Satisfied, 2025 Q2: 10New development charges, 2025 Q3: 25Satisfied, 2025 Q3: 12New development charges, 2025 Q4: 26Satisfied, 2025 Q4: 13New development charges, 2026 Q1: 34 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q1: 15 (censored by registration lag)2026New development charges, 2026 Q2: 40 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q2: 9 (censored by registration lag)

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · exit-type lending

Bridging and specialist lending to Croydon developers

Croydon saw 51 exit-type charges registered against development companies in the 12 months to June 2026, against 51 a year earlier (0%).

Bridging lenders held the largest number, 31. The first half of 2026 alone brought 27, against 24 in the first half of 2025.

Exit-type lending counts charges registered by bridging lenders, specialist banks and private credit funds against companies whose registered business is developing buildings (SIC 41100 or 41202). It is the market that refinances development debt at completion and funds the sales period.

Croydon: exit-type lending to developers bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies, rolling four quarters
0204060802022 Q42023 Q42024 Q42026 Q2Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2022 Q4: 67Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q1: 58Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q2: 57Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q3: 43Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q4: 45Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q1: 56Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q2: 61Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q3: 63Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q4: 57Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q1: 53Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q2: 51Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q3: 42Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q4: 48Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q1: 50Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q2: 51Charges 51

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · lender categories

Who is lending in Croydon

Of 1,210 property charges in Croydon we could match to a lender type, 93.4% sat with specialist lenders (national: 88.4%). That 5 point premium marks a market that relies more heavily on short-term and specialist capital.

Lenders are grouped by category from the Construction Capital lender register and never named.

Who holds the charges: lender categories share of register-matched property charges, 12 months to June 2026
Specialist and challenger banksBridging lendersHigh-street banksDevelopment lenders, funds and other
CroydonCroydon, Specialist and challenger banks: 52.3%52%Croydon, Bridging lenders: 41.1%41%Croydon, High-street banks: 6.6%E and WE and W, Specialist and challenger banks: 60.5%61%E and W, Bridging lenders: 27.5%28%E and W, High-street banks: 11.5%12%E and W, Development lenders, funds and other: 0.5%

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Land Registry · sales

How quickly new homes are selling

Croydon recorded 49 new-build sales in the settled 12 months to July 2025, against 94 the year before (-47.9%). New-build made up 1.2% of all sales (8.3% nationally).

The new-build premium was -15.8% on flats (£240,000 median).

All residential sales totalled 3,936 in the settled 12 months to January 2026 (+8.1% on the year before).

Land Registry registers new-build plot sales up to a year after completion, so new-build figures use the latest settled 12 months. Prices are transaction-sample medians, not a like-for-like index.

Croydon: new-build sales registered by half-year; faded bars sit inside the registration lag and will rise
050100150200New-build sales, 2022 H1: 1232022 H1New-build sales, 2022 H2: 1382022 H2New-build sales, 2023 H1: 1012023 H1New-build sales, 2023 H2: 432023 H2New-build sales, 2024 H1: 502024 H1New-build sales, 2024 H2: 272024 H2New-build sales, 2025 H1: 222025 H1New-build sales, 2025 H2: 13 (censored by registration lag)2025 H2New-build sales, 2026 H1: 0 (censored by registration lag)2026 H1

HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, Construction Capital analysis

Planning · pipeline

The next wave of schemes needing an exit

The approved pipeline in Croydon: 429 residential consents in the latest 12-month window (185 other relevant, 72 prior approval, 59 change of use), plus 184 pending.

At least 1,523 homes are consented, counting only the 113 approvals that state a number.

Residential applications from council planning portals over each council's latest 12-month window. Unit counts are only stated on some applications, so unit totals are a floor.

Companies House · registrations

New developer companies

Company formation is an early pipeline signal: 653 new property and development companies in Croydon over the latest year, 225 registered as developers (SIC 41100 or 41202).

H1 2026 brought 328 against 353 in H1 2025.

Companies registered with SIC 41100, 41202 or 68100, placed by registered office. The register lists live companies only, so earlier periods lose companies since dissolved.

Benchmark

Croydon against England and Wales

MeasureCroydonChangeEngland and WalesChange
New development charges, 12 months125+30.2%9,544+11.7%
Development charges satisfied, 12 months49+32.4%3,785+21.1%
Live development book at 30 June 202654041,855
Share of live book over 24 months old63.1%60.6%
Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months510%5,241+3.4%
New-build sales, settled 12 months49-47.9%68,506-6.1%
New-build share of sales, settled 12 months1.2%8.3%
New developer and property companies, 12 months653+10.7%61,275+7%
What it means

What this means for developers exiting in Croydon

Up: new development lending, loan repayments, new companies. Down: new-build sales.

With more of the local book past 24 months than nationally, more schemes here are likely to be completing late or selling slowly. That is where a development exit loan earns its keep: it repays the development lender, stops default interest and gives the sales period room.

Fewer new-build sales being registered means stock is taking longer to clear, so a sales-period facility sized to the unsold units is worth pricing early.

Terms depend on the scheme, the sales evidence and the developer, and no finance is guaranteed. We are a finance broker, not a lender. Development exit finance for companies is unregulated lending.

Read how a development exit loan is sized, or compare the national picture in the Development Exit Demand Tracker. Local market detail sits on our development exit finance in Croydon page.

Methodology and sources

Companies House charges (security instruments, not loans: no amounts, LTVs or rates). Development lending = charges held by specialist development lenders, or by development-active mixed lenders where the borrower carries SIC 41100/41202, the charge wording names development land or a site, or the borrower is a newly incorporated (within 12 months) SIC 68100 company with no buy-to-let SIC (the same rule as the national Development Exit Demand Tracker). Exit-type lending to developers = charges registered by bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit (funder) lenders against companies carrying SIC 41100/41202. A charge is placed by its charged-property postcode, or failing that the borrower's registered office. 'Satisfied' is the filed repayment of a charge: the exit. Exit refinance events are new charges registered on the same title after a specialist development lender's charge was repaid or released (charge stacks, same-group and same-company pairs excluded). Satisfactions are filed late, so the most recent six months are provisional and will rise. Lender categories come from the Construction Capital lender register; lenders are never named.

Land Registry registers new-build plot sales up to a year after completion, so new-build counts, shares and premiums are read only over the settled 12 months ending a year before the data vintage (settled12m) and compared with the 12 months before that. New-build figures in the most recent windows are incomplete and are not used for any headline. HMLR Price Paid, standard (category A) residential sales (detached, semi, terraced, flat) in the location's local authorities. New-build premium compares the median new-build price with the median existing-stock price within flats and within houses; it is a transaction-sample median, not a constant-quality index. Registrations lag completions by weeks to months, so the most recent months (and new-build plots especially) understate final counts; trailing-12-month figures are the steadier read.

Residential planning applications (new build, conversion, prior approval, mixed use, HMO, demolition and rebuild) from the Construction Capital council-portal scrapes, one record set per authority, over each council's rolling 12-month scrape window. Unit counts are stated only on some applications, so totals undercount. Councils not yet scraped are listed as missing, never estimated.

New companies with SIC 41100, 41202 or 68100 by registered-office postcode. The register snapshot holds live companies only, so earlier windows lose companies since dissolved; read year-on-year change as indicative.

Data vintage: charges registered to 2026-07-31, satisfactions filed to 2026-08-03, company register snapshot 2026-08-01, Land Registry transactions to 2026-07-31. Area covered: Croydon (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 16 cuts suppressed for sample size.

Sources: Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis; HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, Construction Capital analysis; Council planning portals, Construction Capital planning scrape. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Companies House data is public and reused under the Open Government Licence.

You are welcome to cite or chart these figures with a link to this page.

FAQ

Development exit in Croydon: common questions

How much development lending is there in Croydon?

Development lenders registered 125 new charges in Croydon in the 12 months to June 2026 (+30.2% on the year before), taken by 71 companies. It counts loans taken, not their value.

How old are development loans in Croydon?

63.1% of the 540 development charges live in Croydon at the end of June 2026 had been in place for over two years, against 60.6% nationally.

What is development exit finance?

A short-term loan taken at or near practical completion. It repays the development lender and funds the sales or letting period, often at a lower rate than the development loan it replaces, and can release equity for the next scheme. Our development exit finance page covers how it is sized and priced.

Where does this data come from?

Companies House charges and company registrations, HM Land Registry Price Paid Data and council planning portals, all analysed by Construction Capital. Figures below the minimum sample of 30 are suppressed, and lenders are grouped into categories rather than named.

Completing a scheme in Croydon?

Send us the scheme, the current facility and the sales position and we will give a view on the exit options and indicative terms.