Loan Ref: 1771619745 - Trains

There are several loans based on model railway engines and carriages etc.

Up to the present the loans I have invested in have all been renewed on time.

In the recent past there has been a new loan generated on railway models when one or more loans were coming up for renewal which may be coincidental but causes me concern.

FS don't give any information about what the loans are for or the borrower's exit strategy.

I personally think that, because of the lack of information provided and the renewal and borrowing history, that these are investments I am interested in renewing.

Thanks 09dolphin. Surely there must be a details exit strategy? As part of the application process this surely must be discussed and documented? fundingsecure can you clarify?

I wonder why he needs all of these loans!  Why not just sell a few poxy trains. 

Those few poxy trains have provided a considerable number of investors with a 12% return.

If everybody sold, rather than pawned, this platform wouldn't exist.

Because somebody wants to keep their collection intact shouldn't be the object of fun.

I haven't done a proper analysis, but it does look like some of the additional loans were made to provide the funds to renew some of the earlier loans.  Which might be OK if the borrower has an infinitely large collection.  If they run out new items to pledge, however, and can't fund another renewal then things could get rather awkward. 

I haven't a clue how active the market in these collectibles is, but I suspect 'values' for these sort of things depend a lot on supply and demand.  If there were just a few items to sell, the expected value might be realisable.  But if FS find themselves trying to sell £220k worth of these things all at once the sale results could be disappointing.

I've been investing via FS long enough to remember a couple of loans they made where the security was a collection of paintings by a single artist.  When the loans were not repaid, and FS tried to sell all the paintings at once, IIRC some sold for 30% of the valuation and some didn't sell at all.  I wasn't in those loans, so I haven't a clue whether FS still have some of those paintings to sell.  (The most recent info on the website is from a year ago.  If you're interested, search for loan 2002084876.)