Birmingham has one of the oldest development loan books in the country: of the 73 locations we track, only three have a higher share of live development loans older than two years. That matters more to a developer than the headline volume of new lending, because the age of the local book decides how patient development lenders will be with extensions, and how many other borrowers will be chasing the same exit lenders when your facility runs out.
We cut the latest Companies House charge filings, Land Registry sales and Birmingham City Council planning decisions to see where schemes in the city stand after the first half of 2026. The full dataset, with quarterly charts and a comparison against England and Wales, is in the Birmingham development exit report. This briefing sets out what it means if you are funding or refinancing a Birmingham scheme.
New lending is still growing
Development lenders registered 110 new charges against Birmingham sites and developers in the 12 months to June 2026, up from 96 in the year before. That is a rise of 14.6%, a little ahead of the national increase of 11.7%. The charges were taken by 77 separate borrowing companies, against 59 a year earlier, so the growth is coming from more developers rather than a handful of large facilities.
The first half of 2026 on its own was quieter: 45 new charges against 53 in the first half of 2025. Recent filings are provisional and usually rise as late registrations arrive, so we read the 12 month figure as the more reliable signal.
Repayments are picking up, slowly
Lenders filed 49 development charges as satisfied over the year, up from 36. For every new development charge in Birmingham there were 0.45 repayments, slightly better than the national ratio of 0.40.
Two cautions apply. A charge is a security document rather than a loan balance, so these counts tell you how many facilities cleared, not how much debt. And satisfactions are often filed months after the loan is actually repaid.
The local book is old
This is the number that stands out. Of the 668 development charges still live in Birmingham at 30 June 2026, 72.0% had been registered more than 24 months earlier. Across England and Wales the figure was 60.6%, so Birmingham sits 11.4 points above the national position. Including everything older than 18 months, the share rises to 78.0%.
The loans that were repaid in the year had been in place for a median of 31.5 months. Nationally the figure was 26.1 months. Most development facilities are written for 18 to 24 months, so a typical Birmingham facility is running well past its original term before it clears.
For a developer the practical reading is simple. If your loan is approaching expiry with units unsold, you are joining a large local queue, and lenders pricing extensions or development exit facilities will be aware of it. Starting the exit conversation six months before practical completion, not six weeks, is worth more here than in most cities.
Exit lending has slowed
Development exit and refinance charges against Birmingham borrowers fell to 42 in the 12 months to June 2026, from 49 the year before, a drop of 14.3%. Nationally exit lending rose by 3.4%. Of those 42 charges, 26 came from specialist banks and 16 from bridging lenders, so bridging is carrying a larger share of Birmingham exits than it did a year earlier. The first half of 2026 was better, with 24 exit charges against 20, which may mean the slowdown is easing.
Across all property-secured lending in the city, specialist lenders accounted for 89.7% of matched charges over the year against 88.4% nationally. High street lenders took 10.3%. Birmingham borrowers lean on specialist and bridging money, which usually means higher pricing at exit than a mainstream refinance.
New-build sales: fewer, but premiums hold
Land Registry records new-build sales slowly, so we read them over the latest settled year, August 2024 to July 2025. Birmingham recorded 669 new-build sales in that window, up from 412 in the year before. New-build made up 6.4% of all sales, below the national share of 8.3%.
New-build flats sold at a median of £262,662, 81.1% above the £145,000 median for existing flats. New-build houses sold at a median of £330,000, 32.0% above existing houses at £250,000. That flat premium is large. It supports viability on paper, but it also means a valuer will scrutinise comparable evidence closely, and any slowdown in buyer demand shows up quickly in achieved prices.
Planning: lots of small schemes
Birmingham City Council approved 144 relevant residential applications in the year to 21 September 2026, with 186 still pending. Conversions made up 69 of the approvals, new-build 24 and HMOs 13. Where a unit count was stated, the approvals added 53 homes across 41 applications, and the largest single approval was a 5 unit new-build in Quinton.
That profile points to a market dominated by conversions and small infill rather than large new consents. Larger city-centre schemes are progressing through existing permissions, which is part of why the live loan book is so old.
What to take from it
Birmingham has active new lending, a slowly improving repayment rate, and an unusually aged stock of live development loans. If you are planning an exit, line up comparable evidence early, test a development exit facility alongside a straight sale, and assume the extension conversation will be tougher than it would have been two years ago. If your scheme is student-led, our Birmingham student accommodation development report covers the PBSA pipeline separately.
Sources: Companies House charge register, HM Land Registry Price Paid Data and Birmingham City Council planning records, analysed by Construction Capital. Period figures for 2026 are provisional. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.