Saturday, May 27, 2006

Prosper Update For May

Tricia at Blogging Away Debt is considering her Prosper borrowing options. For those who might be interested, or following along, here's an update of what I have going on at Prosper (I'm a lender there):

Amount Loaned: $300
Current Active Loans: 6
Payment Status / Current: 4
Payment Status / Payoff In Progress: 1
Payment Status / Late: 1 (<15 days)
Average Interest Rate: 10.51%
Current Account Value: $304.65
Total Loans Since Inception: 8
Loans Paid Off Early: 2

I am concerned about the late loan payment. According to that particular borrower's group leader, the borrower (she was "B" rated) has not returned his calls or emails since the payment went "late." This is not the first late payment I've had. In the previous instance, however, the payment was late only because of a glitch in Prosper's system, which Prosper publicly admitted as such.

Does the prospect of losing money bug me? Eh, somewhat. But I knew the risks going in. And this is more of an experiment for me than anything else. I will say this: It's very, very interesting to follow all the interactions between borrowers, lenders, and group leaders on the various message boards that have popped up to facilitate such things.

Prosper turns late loans over to collections once they go 30 days late. This seems a bit early to me, but that's the standing policy. I'd sure rather not deal with that side of my "experiment," but my instincts aren't sending out happy vibes on this one.

Index of My Prosper Posts

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— Posted by Michael @ 11:10 AM








4 Comments:
 

How long are the repayment periods generally? On the $300 you have loaned out how much profit are you likely to see?

 

Tim,

Right now, all Prosper loans have three-year terms. I've not attempted to calculate my potential profit, though, because I've felt the likelihood for default is more substantial than Prosper's figures would indicate. After all, it's not like their form of peer-to-peer lending has been around long enough for accurate stats to be gathered.

 

I have been lurking on prosper for some time now. My initial impression was that the group leader deal was the best role in the cast of characters. I signed us as a group leader, but then I changed my mind and decided that being a lender would allow me to be more "passive". I'm also still worried that I might be on the line or connected to a defaulted loan in my group. So I've opted for the lender role instead. I have also planned on starting with something I could stand to lose, like $100 total. With rates on prosper substantially higher than ING, I figure it wouldn't hurt to give it a try! I suppose that's the phenomenon of risk vs return; we'll see how high the risk really is!

 

Update: It appears that the late payment above has now been made, and is in process.

Give it a few days, and all my loans should once again be current.

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