Sales rate (absorption): the number your lender will ask about

Two schemes with identical GDVs are not identical deals if one sells out in 12 months and the other takes 36. Sales rate (or absorption) — units sold per month — determines when revenue arrives, how long you carry finance, and whether your scheme size matches local demand.

How to measure it from public data

Every new-build sale in the Land Registry has a completion date. Group new-build sales by development (street), and the dates tell you the story: a site that registered 37 completions between August 2021 and September 2022 absorbed ~2.6 units/month. Do this for every recent site near your plot and you have real, local absorption evidence — not a sales agent's optimism.

What it changes in your appraisal

• Finance costs: six extra months of sales period is six more months of interest on peak debt — often six figures on a mid-size scheme.
• Cashflow shape: lenders model drawdowns against sales receipts; your assumed rate has to survive their scrutiny.
• Scheme sizing: if comparable sites absorb 1.5/month, a 60-unit scheme is a 3+ year sales programme. Phasing or a smaller mix may price the land better than optimism will.
• Incentive risk: slow absorption is what triggers margin-eroding incentives late in a scheme; realistic rates upfront protect the appraisal.

Reading the evidence honestly

Completion dates lag reservations by months — treat measured absorption as conservative. And distinguish a site's steady-state rate from launch spikes: the median across several local sites is a sturdier planning number than any single site's best year. Threshold derives absorption automatically from the new-build comps in your radius, per site, with the median across sites.

Data referenced in Threshold is displayed under the Open Government Licence (HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, EPC Register, ONS, UK HPI). All figures produced by Threshold are statistical estimates for site appraisal, not RICS valuations.