HomeDevelopment Finance › Development Finance Calculator

Development Finance Calculator: appraise a scheme in minutes

Land cost, build cost, GDV. See roughly what senior debt funds, the equity you'll need, and the margin lenders will read from your numbers.

65% of GDV, a typical senior debt cap
20% profit on GDV is what lenders like to see
24 hrs decisions in as little as
✓ FCA-regulated advice✓ Whole of market🏆 Award-winning broker
★★★★★5 star Google reviews. Read them on Google

Talk to Ashley about your scheme

No credit check. We call you back, usually within one working hour.
No credit check FCA regulated No obligation

Development finance calculator

Your scheme
Include professional fees and a 10-15% contingency in the build figure. Optimistic builds are the number one cause of dead appraisals.
Your indicative appraisal
Indicative structure only, before finance costs. Rolled interest and fees come out of the profit, and every lender reads a scheme differently. A real appraisal takes one phone call.
Ashley's take

"If the calculator says your margin is under 20% of GDV, don't massage the GDV. Lenders will un-massage it for you. Find a cheaper site or a cheaper build."

Reading your results like a lender

  • Margin on GDV: the number underwriters look at first. Around 20% reads as healthy, under 15% is a struggle
  • Equity required: if it is more than you have, see mezzanine or JV funding
  • Total cost of funds: rate, fees and monitoring across the whole programme, which comes out of the profit line

Compare live deals across the development market

For live lender pricing on a real scheme, we use a whole-of-market search tool: build your deal once and it searches the market for current rates, terms and loan to costs in about 60 seconds.

Search live development deals
Opens our deal search, takes about a minute to build your scheme
Open the lender search →
Found a deal you like?

Send us what the search shows you, or just request a call back, and someone from our team will tell you straight whether we can beat it. The search shows you the market. A broker gets you the exceptions, which are often better than anything listed.

Understanding development finance at Bridging Finance Broker

What is GDV in property development?

Gross development value: what the finished scheme will be worth once built and sold, evidenced by comparables rather than optimism. It's the number everything else hangs off, since lenders cap borrowing against it and read your profit margin from it.

How much can I borrow for property development?

Senior lenders typically cap at around 65% of the end value (GDV) or around 85% of total costs, whichever bites first. The development finance calculator above shows which cap applies to your scheme and what equity that leaves you to find.

How much deposit do I need for development finance?

Think of it as equity rather than a deposit: total costs minus what the lender funds. On a typical scheme that lands somewhere around 15% to 25% of total costs, and mezzanine or JV funding can reduce the cash you put in.

How accurate is a development finance calculator?

As accurate as your build cost. Get a QS involved early, price the contingency honestly, and the calculator gets close. The appraisal that matters is done by a human, ours and then the lender's.

Does the appraisal include finance costs?

The calculator shows your position before finance. Rolled interest, fees and monitoring come out of the profit line, which is why leverage changes viability and why we model the full stack before you commit to a site.

Written by Ashley Morley, CeMAPDirector & Founder, CeMAP, broking since 2015. Development deals are won at the appraisal stage, before anyone has bought anything. Based on real placements, recorded and written up.

The clock's ticking on your deal.

Call, request a call back, or message Kelly on WhatsApp.