Stop Auto Complete clearing input?

Is there a way to stop the Auto Complete from clearing if a non existing result is entered?

ie, sceanrio, you want an Auto Complete field in a form where a user is adding a new area which does not exist so no results are returned, but you want to add the new area so go to the next field in the form, as soon as you do this the Auto Complete field is cleared currently…

Can this be disabled? Reason being is the user wants to see if the ‘phrase’ (area in this example) exists and if it does it does not require entering a second time, if it does not exist accept the new ‘phrase’ (area) and continue with the form and don’t clear the Auto Complete field.

Could we use a modifier here, and if so what would we use?

Really hope that makes some sense!