Personal Loan Portfolio

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Today, I planned to post some interesting information on Prosper.com lending based upon the Webinar (”Using Prosper tools for more effective lending”) that I signed up for with Prosper a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, … Continue reading «Prosper.com Lending Tools Webinar Cancelled»

When Lending Club updated their website, I noticed that Rate Ladder’s screenshots looked different from mine. This was discussed in the comments on RateLadder’s blog. Kevin removed all the comments on his blog so I can’t follow up on this issue there, so I’ll have to post the explanation here… … Continue reading «Update on New Lending Club Screen Difference»

Tom at Prosper Lending Review may have topped my compiled blogger advice for new lenders by posting advice from 11 people for someone considering peer lending. The person seeking advice is concerned about stock market returns and the low bond/CD rates and therefore is considering putting a 100K into P2P loans to earn 10%. To sum up my advice:

… Continue reading «Advice for Potential a New Peer-to-Peer Lender»

I often read that borrowers in one state or another are more likely to default on Prosper loans. I decided to investigate if there is any truth to the likelihood that some states are worse credit risks than others. The example that often comes to mind is Georgia which has a high default rate. Currently Georgia has nearly 8% defaults and about 10% late which is a higher than average rate of late loans, but nine states have more loans that are two or more months late than Georgia.

My interest in state by state loan default rates prompted my article Pennsylvania Loans: What were early Prosper lenders thinking? At the same time, I noticed how state interest rate caps vary widely from state to state — Pennsylvania 6% and Georgia 36%. I decided to see if the interest rate caps could partially explain the difference in Prosper loan default rates by state. My theory is … Continue reading «Prosper.com Correlations: Late Loans and Interest Rate Caps»

Thanks to Prosper Lending Review for hosting P2P lending carnival number four. I entered carnivals one and two, but managed to miss number three.

For carnival number four, I entered my post: What were the early Prosper lenders thinking? I decided to select this post because of the interesting Prosper Marketplace history that came out in the comments, so thanks to everyone who commented.

By far, the most useful post of the P2P lending carnival was the one on Prosper Taxes by RateLadder.

DoughRoller had an interesting post on … Continue reading «P2P Lending Carnival #4»

It was my turn to give a speech last Thursday in the Toastmaster’s club that I attend. I decided to give the speech on P2P lending. For me, the most difficult part of selecting this topic was cutting down the material into only a 7 minute speech.

The Toastmaster (the person running the meeting) gives a short for the speaker, but the content is often provided by the speaker. I asked the Toastmaster to mention that this a perfect topic for me because it intersects two of my favorite topics — finance and the internet.

During the speech, I explained the basics of … Continue reading «Speech on P2P Lending for Toastmasters»

I extended the deadline to March 1st to win a finance book for reviewing my first Prosper lending strategy.  I thought that this would be a fun way to gather more knowledge around lending and reward those who assist.

I typed up lots of rules at the bottom, but don’t let that intimidate you.  The meat of the rules simply say to post your review of four of my loans (or bids) and what you think I should do differently next time.  Did I miss anything important in the loan review process?

You will have a great chance to win the book since no one has submitted any feedback so far.

Thanks!

I received a promotional email from GlobeFunder today. What amazes me is that they seem to be targeting hedge fund qualified investors, but the email says that they have only originated $100,000 loans since January 1st, 2008. That is a slow start in volume and one that is not likely to entice many major institutions to invest. It is not worth the paperwork to invest such small sums from a large portfolio — it simply will not move the ROI needle. Dwarfing that number Prosper has pushed out $117 million in loan volume. The same article mentions that January 2008 alone was $7.2 million in loans.

Here is the text of the GlobeFunder email:

When the media is absorbed in (some would say paralyzed by) the global credit crisis and market downturn, it’s hard to bring attention to a global event closer to home: GlobeFunder is shaking-up the traditional lending world. But we’re being noticed by the likes of Forbes and others … Continue reading «GlobeFunder - Hedge Fund or Peer Lending?»

Browsing some Prosper lending statistics at LendingStats.com, I noticed that Pennsylvania loans are exceptionally late. 23% of the loans by dollar volume have already defaulted — despite the low rate cap of 6%. The low rate cap presumably should keep higher risk borrowers from receiving a loan. See Pennsylvania Loans Sorted By Origination Date. Other lower end rate cap states like … Continue reading «Pennsylvania loans or what were early Prosper lenders thinking?»

I looked up the Prosper Book on Amazon and noticed a link to the P2P lending site DUCK9. The author of the book, Roger Steciak, states in his blog on Amazon:

I was interviewed recently by the SocialLendingWatch.com blog and realized there are now seven sites in the United States offering or planning to offer for-profit people-to-people lending. Duck9, LendingClub, and Prosper are up and running now, while GlobeFunder, Loanio, Microplace, and Zopa have announced their intentions of launching at some point.

Since it mentions Zopa is due to launch, we know the post is out of date because Zopa launched several months ago.  However, I was surprised that I had never heard of Duck9 since it merited a mention from “The Prosper Book” author. I searched for reviews of DUCK9 but found little information. I browsed over to the site DUCK9.com. It seems like a small niche lending site for students, even smaller than Fynaz will be. The DUCK9 site also has some information on auto loans.

The name is odd but … Continue reading «P2P Lending to Students with DUCK9: Heard of it?»