Lending Club Prime - November Offer - Thoughts?

[howler99]

It looks like LC has an offer through November to start a Prime account with no fees for as little as $10k, or convert an existing account to Prime. I would appreciate thoughts on the Prime account and expected returns.

In my case, I have an LC account under 10k of hand-picked loans (using mostly information from here) that is doing well (but only 4mos old), and I would need to top this off with new funds to hit the 10k mark.

What kind of returns can a Prime account expect and what are the best options for selecting notes in a Prime account?

I would probably fund another smaller account just to keep doing the hand-picked strategies.

[Peter]

My feeling is that an individual using some strict filtering will always do better than a PRIME account. I have had a PRIME account for 2 1/2 years now (I have kept it up as an experiment) and it is my worst performing account at a 5.7% real return. I think PRIME is great for those people who don't want to actively invest but I wouldn't choose it for better returns.

[Blake]

I'm not really considering because you can't filter enough information for automation to get the right return.

It's funny, because even though it takes time to fund notes, I find it almost a hobby: picking notes that I believe and have found through data to yield the best return.

[rajuabju]

the only type of bonus that I'm interested in from LC is if they run a deposit "X" dollars by such and such date, and get a bonus of Z dollars / percentage.

unfortunately, they havent run any such promo in a long time, probably because they dont need to with all the institutional money coming in

[TravelingPennies]

Actually picking notes is kind of like a hobby for me too. I don't ever have enough time, but I enjoy reading up on strategies from LendAcademy and other places, finding notes, and watching the returns grow. I just thought the Prime account would make it a little easier. The LC support folks said I could continue to handpick notes  in the same account when funds were available.