justsaying
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Post by justsaying on Feb 3, 2015 13:52:06 GMT
I have invested a small amount with these guys and am thinking about increasing it as their monthly access rate is competitive (3.5%) and I need to diversify my P2P holdings further but just wondering if anyone else has any experience of them to share? Can't find any stats on their website to see the size of their loan book, number of lenders etc.
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Post by Landbay on Feb 4, 2015 10:34:06 GMT
Hi JustSaying
We are currently working on our Stats page for the site - The designers are doing the finishing touches to it as we speak and we expect it to be pushed live next week. In summary though we have now lent just over £2.5 million (17 mortgages). And Just under £2 million of that has been lent in the last 2 months. We expect to lend about £1.5 million in February and £2-2.5 million in March. The average LTV is 68% and the current average of Rental Coverage is c.160%.
Anyway to feel free to ask any questions and hopefully you will like the stats page when it is launched.
Best Regards
Landbay
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baldpate
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Post by baldpate on Feb 6, 2015 21:18:13 GMT
I'm in much the same position as JustSaying - I have put a very small amount into Landbay just to get a feel for this platform from a lender's perspective before venturing any deeper. My impressions so far are mixed:
1. On the positive side, the site is very easy to use. You choose your product and you transfer funds : the funds are invested in your chosen product and you are earning interest. Simples!
2. Now a bit of a disappointment. There seems to be no way to find out what loans I am invested in. I don't mean the details - I didn't expect the borrower(s) to whom I was lending to be identified, or the specific properties ; but I did expect to be able to see whether my investment had been applied to just one loan, or spread over several, and in what proportions. If this information is available on the platform, it is well hidden, for I cannot find it. Landbay might argue that, with the combination of provision fund and high-quality security, diversification is not necessary. Were they to do so, I would have to disagree : whilst the extensive diversification appropriate for unsecured/poor-quality-secured loans may well be unnecessary (my Funding Circle + ReBuilding Society lending is spread over more than 250 borrowers), a degree of diversification is still desireable. I would classify myself as a small-medium P2P investor (say £10K -£20K in each of a number of platforms), As such, I would feel very uncomfortable if I thought all my Landbay investment at this level was going into a single loan (or even a small single-digit number of loans). Currently, Landbay only say that no more than £25K will be invested in any one mortgage.
3. Finally, an unknown. At 3.5%, the rate offered on the tracker product is not competitive if thought of as a 5-year investment. Landbay's obvious market competitors are Ratesetter and Wellesley : both are larger operations (in the case of Ratesetter, substantially so, with consequently less platform risk) and neither is significantly less secure than Landbay (particularly so in the case of Ratesetter) : both offer 5-6% on 5-year loans. The real edge that Lanbay may offer is that Tracker loans may be more liquid, and need not be treated as full term loans 5-year loans. As such, they could be competitive with short rates on the competitor platforms (e.g Ratesetter currently : ~ 2.9% on 1 month, ~ 3.9% on 1 year). However, liquidity has yet to be demonstrated. At present there is no public Secondary Market - sale of loan parts is currently by private application only. Furthermore, sale is dependent upon there being willing buyers - i.e. a market. These are the unknowns to which I referred.
So, as far as I am concerned, there are several things which must happen before I am likely to place much more funds with Landbay : a) I need to be satisfied that my investment are being spread over a reasonable number of different loans. b) I would need to see evidence of a functioning secondary market (for the Tracker product).
I hope a Landbay representative will feel able to respond to my comments.
Regards
Chris
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Post by Landbay on Feb 9, 2015 9:41:15 GMT
baldpate
Thank you very much for your comments
Firstly on diversification - I agree with you. We take good security and the provision fund is currently 1.2% of the loanbook but diversification is still important. We have an autodiversification tool that we are in process of making increasingly sophisticated (so that it not just the number of mortgages, but the types of mortgages - ie property type & location etc). As of today we have completed 17 mortgages (with 2 more completing tomorrow). Of those 19, 11 are fixed and 8 are tracker. We expect an other 10-12 to complete by the end of march. What that means is that currently someone can expect to diversified over at least 5 mortgages and by the end of March/beginning of April about 10. Our aim is for lenders to be diversified over at least 25 mortgages - although that will take a few months for our loan book to grow sufficiently. We are also in the process of designing an enhanced user "my account" page so that lenders can see details about their loans - (ie postcode, type of property, no of bedrooms, value of property, LTV, rent etc).
Secondly - re platform risk/liquidity. Obviously we are a younger company than Ratesetter, however we took on external investment at the end of last year and so we have a decent balance sheet (We are went through significant due diligence by our investors). Regarding liquidity - we are currently finding that circa 75% of funds coming in our tracker (and so our mortgage pipeline is similar). So far the tracker product has proved to be very liquid - lenders have managed to get out of loans within 24 hours etc. However this isnt a guarantee and you are right, the successful sale of loan parts depends on their being willing buyers - that is true for all p2p platforms. The removal of interest rate risk should make it more liquid than other products.
Best Regards
landbay
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Feb 9, 2015 10:34:54 GMT
We have an autodiversification tool that we are in process of making increasingly sophisticated Will you publish the loan diversification, so that if the worst were to happen the liquidator would be in no doubt and have no choice regarding which loan parts belonged to which investor? Oh and will you be taking on investors from other EU countries?
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Post by Landbay on Feb 9, 2015 10:46:01 GMT
Shimself
Yes - As said - we are rebuilding a lender portal and so that every lender would be able to see the loan parts that he or she is in. If the platform were to "fail" and go into receivership the loans would be locked at that point. All of our loans are managed by a loan serving provider (which is quite normal in the mortgage business). Therefore if Landbay was to fail the money would continue to be collected , the key thing for the administrator would be to allocate funds to the correct lender.
re EU - currently lenders need a UK bank account - however we are looking at expanding beyond thus, subject to AML and payments issues
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Feb 9, 2015 14:18:48 GMT
Shimself re EU - currently lenders need a UK bank account - however we are looking at expanding beyond thus, subject to AML and payments issues May I introduce you to your faq: 17. CAN I LEND ON THE PLATFORM IF I AM NOT A UK RESIDENT?
Unfortunately no. We are required by law to conduct UK AML and KYC (Anti Money Laundering & Know Your Customer) checks on both our lenders and borrowers.(I do have a uk bank account.) So which is it?
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Post by Landbay on Feb 9, 2015 15:34:29 GMT
Shimself
You have to pass our identity & AML checks on Equifax - that will mean having a UK address along with a UK bank account.
regarding your specific case if you email info@landbay.co.uk and explain your circumstances they should be able to help you
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Feb 9, 2015 16:47:25 GMT
Shimself You have to pass our identity & AML checks on Equifax - that will mean having a UK address along with a UK bank account. regarding your specific case if you email info@landbay.co.uk and explain your circumstances they should be able to help you Well you've just accepted some money from me so let's see what happens. Equifax have heard of me despite my expat proclivities. An awful lot of retired Brits live overseas, and of course they've often got savings (and often kept UK bank accounts), it's a good market for you
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baldpate
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Post by baldpate on Mar 22, 2015 16:56:28 GMT
Hi again,
I'm reprising this thread to ask Landbay what progress is being made on the the enhancements to the website so that lenders may see which loans they are invested in (mentioned in reply to my earlier post in this thread, and repeated in reply to user shimself).
Do you yet have any idea (however approximate) of when this will become available? You may recall, it was one of the 'impedements' I mentioned to my deeper participation on this platform.
I have been following the site since early February, and it is encouraging to see the appearance of the Statistics page and the published loanbook - and indeed the fact that the loanbook seems to be growing very much in line with expectation.
Thanks for any information you can give.
Chris
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Post by Landbay on Mar 24, 2015 16:24:04 GMT
Hi baldpate / Chris This is still currently in our roadmap and is likely to be live towards the end of this year. Thank you for your comments regarding the Statistics Page and loanbook, we are very pleased with our current rate of progress. Best regards, Landbay
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baldpate
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Post by baldpate on Mar 25, 2015 22:45:51 GMT
Thanks for the information, Landbay. That's a bit further down the track than I was expecting. I think I'll have to sit this one out.
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