P2P Lending / NFT Lending Forum

Hi everyone,

My name is Peter Renton and I am the publisher of the Social Lending Network and the creator of this forum. I firmly believe that one of the best ways we can learn is to share idea. I know I have learned a great deal from everyone who has commented on the blog and I expect I will continue to learn from discussions here.

I created this forum because many readers have asked for a central place where they can come and discuss p2p lending. I hope this will be that place. Thanks, as always, for your contributions.

Peter

testing in a reply

Peter - Thanks for starting this Forum. Look forward to an open, constructive dialog.
Chris Larsen
CEO, Prosper

from: ChrisProsper on September 10, 2011, 06:23:27 PM

Thanks, Peter, for all of your hard work in this area, and thanks for starting what I hope will be an active P2P forum.

Thanks everybody. I appreciate your introductions and words of encouragement. I look forward to hearing your contributions.

from: Pebbles on September 14, 2011, 12:08:39 PM

Hi, I'm the creator of Smart Peer Lending.

Great to see a new forum for discussions on P2P lending. Thanks for setting it up Peter.

-mike

from: chasingbread on September 28, 2011, 04:07:30 PM

Hello Everyone,

My name is Chris and I am an institutional investor at Lending Club (and now) Prosper.  My previous screen name at prosper was "diligent-peace9" but has been changed now that I figured out how to do it.       I oversee a fund that invests in a variety of things, and "member dependent notes" are gaining an increased position in our fund.


Peter,  I really appreciate the work you have done both with your blog and with this forum.  I am getting to where I check your blog daily.  Keep up the good work!   


Looking forward to some good discussions,
Chris

from: DiligentiaLLC on September 29, 2011, 05:27:06 PM

Hello,

Love this site and its focus on what I consider the only true way to lending in the future.

I run a small business loan search site and I include information on peer-to-peer loans as I feel that social loans are great funding option for small or new businesses who have no chance of obtaining bank loans or for small businesses who need just a little amount of outside capital to grow their business or take on a new project.

While I have yet to be an investor on one of these sites, I have been thinking about it very hard as banks and other investment vehicles are just not providing any type of return these days.

To that note, I joined the forum to learn more about social lending – while I thought I knew a lot, by reading some of the posts here, I realize that I do not know as much as I thought.  Plus, I am looking for more information (tips and tricks) on how to be a good investor.

Looking forward to learning tons here and/or provide a little insight if I can (I do have an MBA in Finance and spent most of my career in commercial banking).

Best Regards To All!

Thank you very much!  I also want to express my gratitude for you providing this opportunity for people like us.  I'm looking forward to gathering a lot of information and maybe providing help where me and my staff can.  Again, thank you very much.

Mike W.

My name is Morgan from Arizona.
I am a very happy new investor in Lending club only able to use the Folio platform. My account is only a month old and very small in size but I can see great things in the future as I learn more about the system

Thank you

Hi All. Thanks Peter for setting up this forum. I hope it will be better than some of the other ones that have died on the vine.

Hi guys.Great site, Peter.I am Canada's original social lender.Newstartcanada.com and peertopeercanada.com are my sites.I created the first peer to peer lending program up here in Canada.My peer to peer lending system operates off line and serves only the unbankable.My core business is affordable car loans for the unbankable.I am very focused right now finishing up my B CORP registration.Cheers.

Hi All
I just read Peter's free ebook. Thanks for taking the time to form a community Peter this is great.   I am hoping this is an active  community. I am pretty new to P2P lending .  I tuned into ZOPA about 6 years ago and was annoyed the US didn't have anything. They were suppose to come to the US but never really got off the ground  so I tuned out.   Around 11 months ago a friend  told me about Prosper. I immediately joined and then found lending club and joined them also.

I am starting off slow and I am now just discovering the Note Trader boards. I am anxious to discuss how people are reading and analyzing these boards because I am seeing some crazy bids that don't make sense to me.

So much to learn and so LIttle time.

from: Italianpeddler on August 07, 2012, 11:10:43 PM

Hello everyone, I Carl & I'm the newest P2P goober.... I have open accounts a both Prosper & LC. I have been lurking in forums and finally decided to join in. Hope to grow my 3 month old early portfolio to 500 notes in the coming year.

Welcome Carl, I am glad you are joining us. Good luck with your p2p lending investments.

Peter, I'm an avid reader of your work and appreciate all you do for p2p lending.  I've had accounts with both Prosper and LendingClub since late 2008 and have watched them (particularly LC) grow at a breathtaking pace as of late.  As a stockbroker by trade, it amazes me how P2P is still "under the radar" and I'm confident this is an asset class that is set to absolutely explode in popularity throughout the decade.

On an unrelated note, while I'm in occasional contact with employees at both LC and Prosper, I'd be very interested in a piece detailing what the borrowing process is like.  I'm curious if there are many on this site that have been on the borrowing side of things, particularly at LC, who can provide insights such as screenshots as to what the application process is like and if LC ever encourages borrowers to answer the pre-selected questions before being prompted (and if they are bombarded with emails for each individual question or if LC only sends one email a day) and what kind of communication/relationship LC has with borrowers as I have a suspicion LC has too few employees to be effective servicers of tens of thousands of loans.

Once again on behalf of many, thank you for all you do with this site!

from: TooSmall2Fail on August 20, 2012, 05:04:10 PM

Hi, Peter, I visit your social lending site on a weekly basis and greatly appreciate the work you do for the p2p lending community.  I started investing in Proper loans in May and it's been nearly 4 months now.  (Actually, I opened a Prosper account back in 2007, but fortunately, I didn't put any money in it, since as we all have come to know, Prosper 1.0 didn't fare well.) The returns have been quite good, and I just began putting some money into Lending Club this month to compare the two platforms.  I expect the ROI to come down as the loans mature, so I am quite realistic in that regard.  I look forward to learning more from you and others in the forum.

After having some experience with both Prosper and Lending Club, I realize that for Lending Club the loan sizes tend to be bigger, in fact, so much bigger for the lower grades than those for Prosper.  For E, F, G grades, LC allows a whopping maximum of $35,000 for a period of 5 years, whereas Prosper allows for only $4000 for 3 years in E and HR loans. I use Nickelsteamroller for research and screening. To my surprise, even for the lower grades, the smaller loans (<$10,000) in LC don't necessarily do better than the larger ones.  In fact, they fare worse. It is difficult to convince myself to commit any fund to a $35,000 loan for a period of 5 years, but if data matters at all, I have to go against my own gut feelings.  I have managed to pitch in a tiny portion of the money for a few of loans in the range of $20,000 to $30,000 for the lower grades.   (Are they talking about raising the maximum to $50,000? That's mind-boggling--too much temptation to just run with the money.)

Would Peter and others care to comment on that?  Why would LC let folks with such high risks borrow $35000? Thanks.   

from: investforfreedom on August 27, 2012, 10:45:52 AM

Thanks for opening this

AS always I am very thankful for you , I used to email you a couple of times with questions , but now it will be easier to ask.....

Thanks for everything

Thanks for joining and welcome. As I said I check the forum every day and if no else has answered the question I will always jump in.

Hi,
My name is Mark, I am a new Prosper investor with a $20k account which I funded in August of this year. I'm still learning and have a lot of questions. If all goes well, I plan to set up an IRA and start contributing a small amount from my monthly salary.

Hi to everyone

My name is Mariano and I'm the CEO and Founder of the first Italian P2P lending marketplace. I'm used to read about P2P on P2P Lending News Updates  and I'm happy to learn and partecipate to this forum

 

Welcome Mark and Mariano, thanks for joining us. Feel free to chime in with any questions or comments.

I've been a Prosper Investor since 2010.

After a year of dipping my toe in with unbelievable results, I dumped serious money in, and invested in all the wrong things as if I could do no wrong. After trashing my ROI, I went looking for help.

I found Prospers.org (OMG, flame war central), then Lendstats (defunct analysis for Prosper lenders, still running stats for LC), helped set up a new forum when lendstats forum went down http://p2plending.forumatic.com, and now also use Prosper-stats http://prosper-stats.appspot.com/TopLenders.jsp for loan selection support. Glad to see a new forum here too!

I have three accounts with a variety of objectives, but all focused on making solid returns.

Graceful

Welcome Graceful, I often read your posts over on the P2P Lending Forumatic forum. I am glad you decided to join us here as well.

Hello I'm Meggie and I've been investing at both Prosper and Lending Club for a few months. Happy to join a community of users for both sites, since most people I've tried to discuss it with think that it's an insane concept. I'm really encouraged so far, and having fun running numbers and playing with the different stats.

Welcome. When I started I knew no one and several people thought I was crazy, too. But p2p lending is slowly becoming more mainstream and the returns continue to be good for investors.

Hello everyone -

I started social lending this summer with Prosper.com, and also launched a blog at www.prosper-review.com as a resource for others who are interested in my personal experiences and results in the process.  I've invested about $500 and I'd say I'm still testing the waters a bit, but so far I think it's going pretty well.

-Jim Elliot

Hello everyone

My name is.. lets say its John.

I have been investing with LC since May 2011 and unfortunately I live in one of those states that doesn't allow direct investing and I have been stuck with using the unfortunate FolioFN platform.

Welcome Jim. Glad you are joining in the conversation. I have subscribed to your blog and look forward to reading your updates.

Hi Everybody!  My name is Roy.  I'm a 53-year old guy living here in New Jersey.  Not only am I an investor, but I also have a 36 month loan out with LC since Feb. 2011.  That's how I got interested in the investing aspect. 

Living in New Jersey I have to use the Folio platform.  That's Okay because I'm not interested in funding new notes.  My investment style is highly aggressive and speculative.  My portfolio currently consists of about 25% quality A and B notes and 75% speculation.  I'm not in this for a 10% to 12% return, but curious to see if I can't push the 30% and even 40% mark.  With that in mind, the money I have invested is strictly "Fun" money.  I enjoy the higher returns, but the pursuit of those returns is what I enjoy the most.  Unlike my mutual funds (which is like watching grass grow), I work and monitor my LC account daily. 

Welcome Roy. So I take it you are trying to be an active Folio investor and holding notes for a short duration. If that is the case you should read Lending Club Experience - he had the same strategy:
http://lcp2p.blogspot.com/

Good luck.

Hello all!
  My name is Jerry and I recently set up a Lending Club account with my brother Ron. We've put a small amount of money away together each month for going on 8yrs now. Eventually we plan to use this money as our own personal bank (to buy cars, houses, rental properties..ect.ect) and we do to some extent already. This money has been accumulating for years and although my brother and I both invest in the stockmarket we could never seem to agree on what to invest our "Brother Account" in. Until I found "Lend Academy", once I read Peter's book "The Lending Club Story" and I read through the website It took me all of five minutes to convince my brother this was what we had been looking for.
So I'd like to send a big thanks out to Peter for having the passion and drive for P2P Lending to set all this up!! Without this information it would have taken me many months to do due diligence on Lending Club. So as of 3 weeks ago my brother and I made our first deposit of 10K into P2P lending we each manage 1500 of that and let the system pick loans for the remaining 7k. If everything goes as expected and we reach our return goals we plan to invest much more in Lending Club. I look forward to continuing learning and growing in the P2P community and again can't thank you enough Peter!!

Welcome Jerry. I am glad you have found this site useful - it has been developed with people like you in mind. Look forward to your contributions here.

Hey everyone, Justin here from Santa Barbara, CA. I recently got into p2p lending to try to make a few $ like everyone else. Thank you Peter for all of the great information, it has been really helpful. I have a unique situation right now and am available to anyone interested for either information or for an investment. I currently own two properties in Santa Barbara, CA that I am trying to refinance but can't due to the LTV not matching what the bank wants. Both properties have adjustable loans on them and I need to refi into fixed loans before rates go up. It has been stressful due to the market crash but I live in a high $ area with high rents. I am currently looking for a personal loan so that I can give the money directly to the bank which would bring my LTV in line and allow me to refi. The conundrum I now face is that the interest rates on the adjustable loans are 3%. Super cheap money for sure but it will go up in the future....tick,tock. I have been trying to make money on money on money to get the #'s where I need them for the refi. I am a 13+ year firefighter in Santa Barbara with a credit score of 815 and no debt other than the house loans. I have never been late on any payment ever to anyone and am super trustworthy. I decided to put this info up here because I have read a few posts with people speculating on others situations with high credit scores( go get a loan at a credit union, I must not be financially savvy, etc.) the problem is the rates offered. I am looking for a personal loan but I am also an AA borrower if I get a loan through LC or Prosper so if anyone just wants to pick my brain on high credit score borrowers and their situation feel free. And by the way, I am pretty financially savvy and willing to help anyone out with advice on 401k fees, borrowing, risk mitigation, etc. and still looking for that loan so I don't have to play the game of which car is going to win the race first, my refinance or rising rates. Thanks everyone for your consideration and I am looking forward to having some meaningful discussions with all of you.

Hello everyone.
Thank you for this forum, Peter.
There is a big need of accurate information on this topic.
I'll do my best to contribute.