ProVal vs Argus Developer: Which Is Right for Social Housing?
Social housing teams choosing appraisal software often compare ProVal with ARGUS Developer. Both are established platforms used by UK development professionals, but they were built for different markets, and that difference shapes how well each fits an affordable housing programme.
SDS makes Proval, so we have an obvious interest in this comparison. To keep it fair, every statement about ARGUS Developer is drawn from Altus Group's own published materials, every statement about ProVal from SDS's published materials and G-Cloud listing. We recommend testing a typical scheme in both tools before deciding.
What Each Platform Was Built For
Altus Group presents ARGUS Developer as commercial real estate development software for property developers, appraisers, consultants and financiers. Its published strengths are development pro formas, residual land values, complex debt, equity and joint venture structures, and investor returns. Altus states that it covers residential, mixed-use, commercial, land and affordable housing in one platform, and that ARGUS software has been developed for more than 30 years and is used in over 100 countries (Altus Group).
ProVal was built for UK social housing. SDS describes it as development appraisal software for social and affordable housing, structured around the sector's scheme types, grant funding and sales assumptions, and used by registered providers, local authorities and their consultants. SDS has worked in the sector since 1994, and its G-Cloud listing describes ProVal as having more than 250 housing association and local authority customers (G-Cloud 14 listing).
The distinction matters because affordable housing appraisal asks different questions. Alongside development viability, a housing association needs grant inputs, rents set by government policy, and cashflows that run across decades of ownership.
Tenure Modelling
Mixed-tenure schemes are where the two products differ most for housing associations. A typical scheme may combine Social Rent, Affordable Rent at different percentages of market rent, shared ownership with its own sales and staircasing assumptions, and open market sale.
ProVal is built to appraise multiple tenures in a single appraisal, with colour-coded tenures, unit-type templates and granular results for optimising a site (G-Cloud 14 listing). Its earlier version, ProVal LS, was reported at launch to support an unlimited number of property types (Housing Technology).
ARGUS Developer lists affordable housing among the asset classes it covers (Altus Group). Altus's published materials do not describe how it handles UK rent policy, shared ownership staircasing or tenure-level viability results. Teams evaluating ARGUS for affordable housing should test those points directly with a representative scheme.
Grant Modelling
Grant shapes the viability of most affordable schemes. Homes England's Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP) 2026 to 2036 opened for applications in February 2026, and providers also manage legacy Affordable Homes Programme schemes and Recycled Capital Grant Fund balances (Capital Funding Guide).
ProVal has grant and subsidy assumptions built into the appraisal, so teams can test how different funding scenarios and grant rates affect viability before committing. SDS also states that it updates ProVal when government legislation changes (G-Cloud 14 listing). Altus's published materials for ARGUS Developer focus on debt, equity and joint venture funding and do not describe UK grant programme inputs (Altus Group).
Long-Term Projections
A housing association keeps the homes it builds, so a scheme's contribution to the business plan over decades matters as much as its development-phase viability. Proval projects cashflow up to 100 years ahead and reports NPV, IRR and payback.
Altus describes ARGUS Developer's cashflow forecasting in terms of the development project: built-in cashflow, interest and ROI schedules, with forecasts updated against actuals during delivery. Its published materials do not state a long-term ownership horizon comparable to Proval's.
Sensitivity Analysis
Both platforms offer sensitivity testing. Altus states that ARGUS Developer sensitises costs, revenues, timing and interest rates and compares multiple development scenarios to find the highest and best use of a site.
Proval lets teams stress-test a scheme against changes in grant, build cost and sales price and see where the viability threshold sits. Organisations can set development assumptions and defaults centrally, so every scheme is tested on a consistent basis. Grant is the variable most specific to social housing, and ProVal's sensitivity testing includes it.
Reporting
Altus describes ARGUS Developer's outputs as lender-ready appraisal formats recognised by investors, valuers and capital markets, with more than 60 reports across a development portfolio (Altus Group). Those audiences reflect its commercial origins.
Proval produces consistent, board-ready outputs for governance sign-off, so a board reviewing several schemes compares like with like. It ships with standard reports out of the box, consolidates schemes for portfolio analysis, and exports to CSV, Excel, PDF and HTML. SDS also offers custom reports as a separate service.
Governance and audit
Proval stores every appraisal centrally, with one version of each scheme, access governed by user permissions, and the assumptions, defaults and overrides behind each appraisal held in one place. Users have access to real-time audit information on activity. That supports the records boards and grant compliance audits rely on. Altus's ARGUS Developer page does not describe its audit features, so teams should ask Altus directly.
From appraisal to delivery
Both vendors cover delivery as well as appraisal, in different ways. ARGUS Developer tracks the budget once a project starts, imports actuals from an accounting system, reforecasts, and tracks variations against the original feasibility budget, with budget tracking and actuals import offered in its Snapshot add-on (Altus Group).
ProVal passes approved appraisal figures into Sequel, SDS's project management software, as each scheme's baseline budget and milestones. Sequel then flags variance against the approved appraisal and gives development, finance and contracts teams one shared view across the programme.
Cost
Argus Developer's licensing is designed for large commercial firms and major consultancies. The cost model reflects its target market. For housing associations with lean development teams, the cost per user is typically higher than purpose-built social housing platforms.
SDS structures Proval pricing for the housing association market. The cost comparison, factoring in the staff time saved by not having to work around a tool built for a different sector, consistently favours Proval for social housing organisations.
The Verdict
ARGUS Developer is a capable, long-established tool, and its strengths in complex funding structures, lender-ready reporting and commercial schemes are well documented by Altus.
For housing associations, registered providers and local authority development teams, ProVal is designed around the work they do most: multi-tenure schemes, grant-funded viability, decades-long cashflows and board governance. ARGUS is the stronger fit where a team also appraises substantial commercial or institutionally funded development and needs one tool for both. Whichever you are considering, appraise a recent scheme in each and compare the result, the effort and the output your board would see.