Property speculators rejected by Dev had to run away (7)
I believe the answer is:
elopers
'property speculators rejected by dev' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.
'had to run away' is the wordplay.
'had' becomes 'rs' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'to' says to put letters next to each other (I've seen this in other clues).
'run away' becomes 'elope' (I've seen this before).
'rs' put after 'elope' is 'ELOPERS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for elopers that I've seen before include "Runaway couple" , "illicit lovers" , "Running mates" .)