eBay for loans
 

http://www.prosper.com/

Saw this in Popular Science this month. It looks interesting... maybe a way to get funding for all these startups!

What do you guys think?

Re: eBay for loans
 

I have looked into this. The consensus among the lenders at their lending forums seems to be that the borrowers are getting better deals than the sellers.

Re: eBay for loans
 

I have been using this site for about 6 months now, mainly as a test. I put in 1k and started making loans. So far I am getting about a 16% return, but I haven't had any loans go more than 30 days past due yet. I expect that my actual return will be closer to 10% as statistically some of my loans should default.

The hard part is trying to pick out the ones who will default less than their credit rating suggests. This has gotten trickier in the past couple months though. Over time as more lenders come in you get lenders that don't know what they are doing and they then overbid for loans and price them below your minimum. Right now I have maximum diversification. ~22 loans at $50 each. 2 of them have been problematic, ie have gone 15 days late more than once, but so far that just improves the return if they don't default as you get penalties.

I keep track of everything in an excel sheet that I plugged in all the formulas to factor in the default rate, etc. If people want to check it out PM me. I might put it up on my forum project website so people could download it.

Pancho

Re: eBay for loans
 

I check out the site from time to time. It isn't worth my time to be a lender. The amount of work involved to diversify and hope to get a decent return isn't worth it.

The site has an ongoing problem with scams and borrower info that has not been properly verified. Maybe down the road it can be a better investment method. For now, I would avoid it as a lender.

As a borrower, it appears to be a good deal. There are lots of lenders giving money to some questionable offers. For example if the loan fills she will have a $903.81 monthly payment for 3 years. A $900 per month payment on top of other expenses would be difficult to maintain for most people.

Re: eBay for loans
 

When in the process do you have to submit your bank account number? Is that the only way to receive/pay for loans?

Re: eBay for loans
 

Does anyone else have any exp with this site?

Re: eBay for loans
 

The money is in being a group leader. In the example you gave the borrower will pay 18% interest. The lenders recieve 17% and the remaining 1% goes to the group leader.

The problem I have with Prosper is you can't sell the loans you bought. They say they are working on that. A business model I have been thinking about involves becoming a group leader. Help people get loans by vetting them. Bid a portion of thier loan if they seem to be a decent risk. Turn around and sell the loan once there 3 months of good payment history. Continue to collect the group rewards interest off the loan even though you no longer own any of it.

Stu

Re: eBay for loans
 

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone else have any exp with this site?

[/ QUOTE ]

I've noticed attractive women get funded much better and at lower rates than ugly ones.

Stu

Re: eBay for loans
 

A message board I recently joined has a propser forum
http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showforum=64

I joined the forum to learn about business credit - just happened to notice the prosper forum this morning. Looks like some people have experienced high frequencies of late payments.

Re: eBay for loans
 

Any interest in forming a 2+2 Prosper group?

I have started one. 2+2 Prosper Group

If you want to join, sweet. I set the rewards that I get to zero, so I'm not gonna make any money off of this. (IE don't flame me for spamming! [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img])

As of right now it's not approved, but once it does I think it could help us get loans for businesses. Let me know if you're interested/think I should change anything with it. Or if you think it's retarded, tell me that too...