Where old loans and weaker sales coincide.
Each of our location reports stands on its own. This one lines them up to show which places stand out, and on what measure.
- Coverage. Places with fewer than 30 new development charges in the year are left out of the rankings, though they still have reports.
- Overlap. Some reports nest inside others, such as a city within a county, so totals should not be added together.
A high ranking is a prompt to look closer, not a verdict on a market. Local percentages can swing on a single large site, so each ranking links to a report that sets out the underlying numbers.
16 of 57 tested locations have both an older book and weaker new-build sales than the national figures
A location is shown where it has at least 30 new development charges in the 12 months to September 2026. National comparators on the same definitions are 61.3% of the book over 24 months and -7.1% on standard new-build sales. These geographies overlap and are not additive.
| Location | Book over 24 months | New-build sales change | Live development charges |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | 70.8% | -39.4% | 448 |
| Buckinghamshire | 69.0% | -20.7% | 649 |
| Berkshire | 67.3% | -32% | 608 |
| Manchester | 67.2% | -18.2% | 1,098 |
| Liverpool | 66.2% | -68.2% | 607 |
| Hampshire | 65.9% | -8.5% | 1,013 |
| Wiltshire | 65.6% | -18.2% | 305 |
| Leeds | 64.9% | -26.1% | 570 |
| Sussex | 64.2% | -17.7% | 1,231 |
| Croydon | 63.3% | -48.4% | 558 |
| Camden | 63.2% | -32.1% | 231 |
| Havering | 62.8% | -53.5% | 164 |
| Hertfordshire | 62.8% | -12.6% | 949 |
| Surrey | 62.5% | -15.7% | 1,092 |
| Enfield | 62.1% | -23.3% | 282 |
Ranked by age of book. Pressure here is a descriptive label for the two measures, not a forecast of defaults.
| Location | Over 24 months | Live charges | Exits filed, 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dorset | 71.8% | 682 | 88 |
| Birmingham | 71.4% | 674 | 58 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | 70.8% | 448 | 54 |
| Buckinghamshire | 69.0% | 649 | 58 |
| Islington | 68.6% | 242 | 29 |
| Berkshire | 67.3% | 608 | 42 |
| Manchester | 67.2% | 1,098 | 65 |
| Bromley | 67.0% | 227 | 16 |
| Newham | 66.9% | 163 | 15 |
| Luton | 66.7% | 171 | 8 |
| Location | Change | New-build sales, settled 12m |
|---|---|---|
| Reading | -69.7% | 30 |
| Liverpool | -68.2% | 194 |
| Bexley | -64% | 32 |
| Lewisham | -56.3% | 38 |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | -55.4% | 215 |
| Havering | -53.5% | 40 |
| Southampton | -53.2% | 36 |
| Croydon | -48.4% | 47 |
| Westminster | -48.2% | 102 |
| Bristol | -44.6% | 134 |
Small local totals swing sharply when one large scheme finishes selling, so a large percentage can reflect one site rather than a market.
| Location | Change | New charges, 12m |
|---|---|---|
| Southampton | +217.6% | 54 |
| Greenwich | +164.7% | 90 |
| Hull | +152.2% | 58 |
| Bromley | +137.5% | 57 |
| Brent | +128.3% | 105 |
| Nottingham | +100% | 64 |
| Somerset | +80% | 108 |
| Croydon | +70.2% | 143 |
| Suffolk | +69.5% | 100 |
| Richmond upon Thames | +68.2% | 37 |
These loans reach practical completion from around 2027, so this is where exit demand may form next.
Read the rankings with care at the top end. Percentage moves on bases this small can be produced by a handful of charges or one large site, and we have not weighted them. Their value is in picking out where to look; each linked report sets the local figures in context.
The North West carries the weakest combination of old loans and falling sales
It recorded the sharpest annual fall in new-build sales, -20%, alongside the second-oldest specialist book. The North East and Yorkshire sits at the other end on loan age.
Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis
| Region | Development-like book over 24m | Specialist book over 24m | Specialist live charges | New-build sales, latest settled year | Change on year | Against 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| London & South East | 59.0% | 64.2% | 830 | 18,402 | -11.6% | -47.8% |
| South West | 61.2% | 63.5% | 488 | 7,380 | -8.7% | -39.4% |
| Midlands | 56.7% | 69.2% | 224 | 18,575 | -0.5% | -26.2% |
| North West | 56.5% | 66.4% | 131 | 10,089 | -20% | -36.5% |
| North East & Yorkshire | 55.7% | 54.5% | 187 | 12,975 | -10.7% | -27.9% |
| East of England | 60.0% | 58.1% | 227 | 10,467 | -0.7% | -36.2% |
| Wales | 51.6% | 63.3% | 30 | 2,314 | -6.4% | -35.3% |
Book measures at 30 September 2026, by property postcode. New-build sales for the four quarters to 2025 Q3. Specialist shares rest on small bases outside London and the South East.
London and the South East has the largest book by far, but it does not lead on age or on the sales decline over the year, although it has lost the most against 2022, -47.8%. The Midlands is the most interesting case. Its annual new-build sales are almost level, -0.5%, yet it has the oldest specialist book, 69.2%. A region can sell homes at a steady rate and still hold loans that have overrun, which is why neither measure should be read alone.
How this report was built
Every figure is calculated from the sources below when the page is built. Nothing is estimated, and cuts below the minimum sample are shown as suppressed.
- Charges. Companies House mortgage and charge filings. A charge is security registered by a lender. It shows a loan was taken and when it was repaid, but not how much was lent, because filings have recorded no amounts since 2013. Registered to 30 October 2026, satisfactions filed to 2 November 2026.
- Lender populations. Specialist means charges held by a curated set of pure-play development lenders (10,127 charges). Development-like adds charges from development-active mixed lenders where the borrower carries a housebuilding code (SIC 41100 or 41202), the charge particulars use development terms, or a newly formed property company with no buy-to-let code is the borrower (66,728 charges in total). These mixed lenders also write buy-to-let books, so this wider measure is noisier. Location and exit-type figures use the strict version, with housebuilding codes only. Lenders are never named.
- Satisfactions. Filing is not compulsory, so every repaid figure is a floor and every aged figure is a ceiling. A quarter-end is provisional until 30 days after the data cut-off, which our tests between successive data vintages support: charge filings arrive within about 20 days, and figures at that age did not move materially when re-run three months later.
- Survivorship. The company register holds live companies only, so older cohorts are missing scheme companies since dissolved. Cohorts up to 2020 are reference only.
- Sold data. HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, England and Wales, detached, semi-detached, terraced and flats. New-build figures stop at 2025 Q3 because registrations lag completions by a year or more.
- Two new-build counts. National series in this report count every price paid category, giving 80,203 sales in the four quarters to 2025 Q3. Location reports and rankings count Category A only, giving 67,091 in a near-identical window. Most of the difference is Category B, which the buyer mix analysis measures directly.
- Regions. Charges are placed by property postcode where one can be identified: 43.6% of the specialist book and 65.3% of the development-like book. England and Wales only.
- Suppression. Shares and medians with fewer than 30 observations are withheld rather than estimated.
- Planning. Approved residential applications from council portals, deduplicated by authority and reference. Approvals lead completions by two to four years, and coverage differs by region, so totals are context and are not ranked.
- Selling time. Rightmove House Price Index, entered from published releases. It covers all listings, not new-build alone.
Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Companies House data is used under its public register terms. You are welcome to cite or chart these figures with a link to this page.
This report is general market commentary. It is not financial, legal, tax or investment advice, and it is not an offer of finance. DevExit is a finance arranger and introducer, not a lender.
Data vintage: Charges to 2026-10-30; satisfactions to 2026-11-02; Land Registry to 2026-09-30. Published 2026-11-03.