How Developers Are Exiting Schemes in Manchester: H1 2026 Data

Development lenders are busier in Manchester than they were a year ago, but the loans they have already written are not coming off the books any faster. That gap between new lending and repayment is what matters to a developer approaching practical completion, because it decides how much patience a development lender has left and how crowded the refinance market will be when you need it.

We pulled the latest Companies House charge data, Land Registry sales and council planning decisions for Manchester and Salford to see where local schemes stand in the first half of 2026. The full dataset, with charts and a comparison against England and Wales, is in the Manchester development exit report. Below is what it means for anyone funding a scheme in the city.

More development loans going on

Over the 12 months to June 2026, development lenders registered 218 new charges against sites and developers across Manchester and Salford, up from 191 in the year before. Those charges were taken by 95 separate borrowing companies. The pace picked up in 2026 itself: 104 new charges in the first half of the year, against 79 in the first half of 2025.

That is faster growth than the national market, where new development charges rose by around 12% over the same 12 months. Manchester lenders are clearly still writing new business.

Fewer coming off

Repayments tell a different story. 71 development charges were filed as satisfied at Companies House over the year, slightly fewer than the 75 of the year before. For every new development charge in the city there were 0.33 repayments, below the national ratio of 0.40.

Two cautions on that number. Repayments are filed late, so the most recent months will rise as filings arrive. And a charge is a security document rather than a loan balance, so the count tells you how many facilities cleared, not how much debt. Even so, a ratio that low means the local development book is growing faster than it is clearing.

An older book than the national average

The clearest signal is age. Of the 1,075 development charges still live in Manchester and Salford at 30 June 2026, 64.3% had been registered more than 24 months earlier. Across England and Wales the figure was 60.6%. Almost three in four (73.2%) were older than 18 months.

Most development facilities are written for 18 to 24 months. A charge that is still live after two years usually sits on a scheme that has overrun its build programme, is selling more slowly than planned, or both. The development loans that were repaid in the year had been in place for a median of 26.6 months.

For a developer, this is the practical point. If your facility is approaching expiry with units still unsold, you are in a large local queue, and development lenders pricing extensions will know it.

Sales: strong new-build share, slower volumes

Land Registry registers new-build sales slowly, so we read them over the latest settled year, August 2024 to July 2025. Manchester and Salford recorded 1,148 new-build sales in that window, down from 1,447 in the year before, a fall of about 21%. New-build still made up 13.0% of all sales, well above the national share of 8.3%.

New-build flats sold at a median of £247,950, 30.5% above existing flats. New-build houses sold at a median of £388,995, 49.6% above existing houses. Those premiums show buyers are still paying for new stock. The falling volumes suggest it is taking longer to sell.

Where exit finance fits

The market that refinances development debt at completion has held steady. Bridging lenders, specialist banks and private credit funds registered 79 charges against Manchester and Salford development companies in the year to June 2026, close to the 81 of the year before. Bridging lenders held the larger share, with 53 of those charges.

Specialist lenders dominate property lending in the city. They hold 94.0% of property charges we can match to a lender type, against 88.4% nationally.

For a Manchester developer with units left to sell at completion, the numbers point one way. The development book is older than average, new-build sales are slowing, and the specialist refinance market has capacity. A development exit facility repays the development lender at practical completion, usually at a lower rate than an extension, and gives the sales period room to run without default interest building up.

The pipeline behind it

Manchester City Council approved 97 residential applications in its latest 12-month planning window, with 117 more pending. The largest consent with a stated unit count was 261 new homes at Boulton House on Chorlton Street, approved in September 2025. Salford is not yet in our planning data, so the true pipeline is larger.

New company registrations point the same way. 1,451 development and property companies were registered across the two cities in the year to June 2026, 10% more than the year before, and 455 of them registered as developers.

What to do with this

If you have a scheme completing in the next 6 to 12 months, price the exit before practical completion, not after. Start the conversation while your development lender is still on standard terms, bring your sales evidence, and compare exit terms against the cost of an extension.

We arrange development exit and refinance facilities across Greater Manchester. Every case is underwritten on its own merits, so terms depend on the scheme, the sales evidence and the developer, and no facility is guaranteed. Development exit finance for companies is unregulated lending.

Data: Companies House charge register and company data, HM Land Registry Price Paid Data and Manchester City Council planning records, analysed by Construction Capital. Lenders are grouped by type and never named. Full methodology in the [Manchester development exit report](https://devexit.co.uk/insights/development-exit-report/manchester/).