International Deal Flow - is it of interest?

I see this as far too risky from a UK lender perspective - you would be sub-contracting sourcing and recoveries to 3rd parties, subject to currency variations, payments to and from overseas banking systems, and more importantly I think it would be far more difficult to carry out due diligence, and to monitor progress.

I do not invest with you, but I think if I did, a move like this would have me running for the hills.

I'm interested in the property area as one of my sectors, but through P2P with the clear business steps of "growth" ," errors", "rate reduction" I'm not sure I want to stick "FX" and "different legals" on the end of it.  I don't even like lending to Scotland as the legals are different enough.

Lots of Tax avoiding Reits out there if you want all the growth without the complexity.  I remember reading through an EU property P2P thread by a very multi-lingual author who was launching a pan europe P2P portal and had to help him with his English (just not native enough).  So sorry not for me.  I like "Johnny Foreigner" but P2P is still too "fire and steer" rather than "steer and fire" for me.

It would be great if you had a platform that did all that but also allowed proper SM trading of such loans. I like the idea but definitely not with the current Property Crowd model which is too inflexible.

Hi Charles,

Sorry I typed that quickly. Calling your model inflexible is probably a bit unfair. I can expand on this another time or more fully in a message direct if you like, but basically I was referring to the current lack of secondary market - and by that I mean something that is liquid, easy to use and automated.

The "institutional grade" part of your USP isn't something I find easy to quantify as an investor. If another forum member asked me to explain why your loans are "institutional grade" compared to the better loans on some of your competitors, I'd struggle to explain it. I can see there are differences in terms of the way it is structured, segregated accounts, the issuance of bonds etc, but there doesn't appear to be anything fundamental like "these loans are clearly lower risk for an equivalent return because...". It may be they are, but it isn't obvious (at least to me) from the supplied materials.

Therefore, the decision to invest comes down to other factors. One of these was the 5k min going down to 1k to make diversification easier. This was a great move and although I had previously invested at the 5k mark to experience the end-to-end process, I had not invested further until this change which resulted in me putting smaller amounts into the more recent offers. 

However, even at the lower amounts every time I invest I hesitate because there is no way to exit the loan early (or at least an easy way to do it). I have to think much more carefully before pulling the trigger as I can't change my mind later. Many times this has stopped me investing. If the loans aren't clearly better (in a way I can identify) and the rates are comparable why tie up cash in something less liquid?

You mentioned access to overseas markets. Wow, I think - this is something that is desirable (diversification), new and unique (isn't on the other platforms) - so it is much more tangible and appealing to me as a USP. It's a great idea. However balanced with the positives are the additional risks relating to international investment i.e. currency or geo-political. With more complexity to consider, the issue of the investment being illiquid becomes even more important.  

So what I meant, and phrased very badly, was that if you offered international deals along with eliminating the only major negative I can see with PC (the inflexibility of the investment - not your 'model' sorry) then it would be a no-brainer and I think you would get lots of interest. If you combined a Lendy style SM with consistent quality loans and access to international markets you would be unbeatable.

On the other hand if it is exactly as per the current PC website and process for investment where you are in for the duration, then I think the response would be muted at best. If I hesitate for this reason over a UK investment, I would even more so for an overseas one. 

So what I meant was, great idea if implemented with a good secondary market.