ashtondav
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Post by ashtondav on Apr 12, 2018 17:28:03 GMT
About £50k invested in 50/50 in the Zopa products. £280 net last month, so the return I expect. This is a mature loan book that I have not been reinvesting in due to better rates on repayments from RS and F.C. Of note is that of the £280 interest £60 was from defaulted loans.
I think some people give up too early - or just get very unlucky as I have always received the expected return.
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Post by BrianC on Apr 13, 2018 15:35:38 GMT
Guess I’m just unlucky then. At the peak I had over £20k in Zopa with about 80% in plus. I stopped reinvesting several months ago when returns plummeted. I’m now down to below £9k and will never invest another penny with Zopa under their current model. My last 12 months are just still positive but that’s due to good returns early on before the defaults started. Below is my last 9 months returns (including this month so far). Looking at that how I can believe it will ever improve? Yes I’m not losing a fortune but considering had my money been in AC or RS I’d have made around £500 in that time then I’m well down for my Zopa efforts. Also if you subtracted all my access, classic and early adopter bonus then I’d have lost EVERY month. I should just cut my losses and sell out really.
I’m assuming others are doing far better than me otherwise why the hell is anyone investing with Zopa??
Apr 18 -£14.96
Mar 18 +£10.01
Feb 18 -£16.67
Jan 18 -£54.12
Dec 17 -£3.12
Nov 17 +£20.04
Oct 17 -£6.72
Sep 17 +£19.43
Aug 17 -£16.70
9 month total £-62.81
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ashtondav
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Post by ashtondav on Apr 13, 2018 16:08:20 GMT
Yep, must be bad luck. But with 900 - 2,000 loans it is astonishing that you are so far under water. As you say, most punters must be getting the returns as Z loaned £85M in the last four weeks.
Difficult to understand your appalling loan book. I too would sell up and jump to RS, AC or FC.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Apr 13, 2018 16:29:34 GMT
Running down the loan book will distort the results as you cannot sell distressed loans (and by definition they are not paying), so you end up with a loan book including a lot of bad loans, but still seems pretty bad luck to be down that far.
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ashtondav
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Post by ashtondav on Apr 13, 2018 17:34:05 GMT
I have been withdrawing repayments for a year and have gone from £75,000 to £50,000 invested, with no reduction in earnings yield. Still 5% to 6%. Brian is very unlucky indeed!
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adrian77
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Post by adrian77 on Apr 14, 2018 8:03:36 GMT
Clearly I am not the only unlucky one here - looks to me as if Zopa have a mass of rubbish loans with a default rate of 10 - 20%. Of all the mega stupid mistakes in my life investing in Zopa has been the worst!! I don't believe a single word regarding their projected rates.
Bring on the class action!
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aju
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Post by aju on Apr 14, 2018 10:06:59 GMT
I definitely was not joking about relend especially as not relending could reduce your returns even further. Bailing out too quickly also will cost 1% in addition. I personally have met with larger than expected defaults but they are mostly not in the plus side. I was always very wary of committing too much to plus so limited it to 10%. One thing i became aware of was the default rate on classic. Its hard to tell at any level other than loan numbers in that arena but in my opinion zopas real reason for pulling safeguard may be the larger number of defaults,who knows. That said I'm fairly sure my defaults are meeting expectation so far. As i showed above my defaults are not small but depending on the next couple of months i hope a clearer picture wil emerge. I have noticed that defaults pulled back in march but too soon to tell for april. You say u are in for 8 months so the last 2 would have been the initial biguns if my 10 months is anything to go by. Perhaps you are right and it will get worse for many others as the months pan out, as i said above anything i can cross is already well and truly crossed. Especially as i've just been accepted to xfer in an external cash isa that is maturing. Hopefully I'll be clever enough to get it lent in £10 blocks.  |
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Apr 14, 2018 10:53:54 GMT
This is my experience with Zopa:-
Q: Am I comfortable in investing in the platform now?
A: No, for the plus, the default risk is too high relative for the low expected return performance. The speed of selling the loan is slow, inconsistent and unpredictable. The last 5% of the portfolio cannot be sold easily, due to late repayment. Selling fees is high, 1% plus any extra interest, could be as high as 3% in total.
Q: Have I been told about the truth about the plus performance and the actual risk being involved?
A: Simply, I have not been told the full truth prior investing over the phone. I have been told getting 11% return over the phone on the plus. I have no idea the selling loan speed was slow before I started selling. After investing for 12 months, I have not earned 11% at all. I did not expect the extra interest for selling apart from 1% fee. I asked for the default rates for the Zopa plus, I could not find out its actual default rates, I was naive to believe the past default rates prior 2016. I find totally unacceptable when Zopa claims actual defaulat rate to date is around 1% for loans originated from 2017, because I and a number of investors have experienced higher rates for the plus.
Q: Have I lost money in Zopa?
A: Not yet on paper. Since I started selling after investing 8 months, I have a total default rate of 3.64% in terms of value invested and expecting 5.5% default. So far, I managed to withdraw 99.8% of the money I deposited in Zopa. On paper, with the reinvestment for the short period, I have earned 0.98% in the all time loan book, but I am expecting this 0.98% to be wiped out once all these loans with late repayment become default. Now I have 6 loans remaining in the plus, they cannot be sold due to missed payments.
To be honest, if I have managed to sell 100% of the portfolio quickly after investing for 8 months, I would have made at least 2% profit after selling fees, in truth, 11% in 12 months cannot be achieved with Zopa Plus, 0.5% in 1 month cannot be achieved with Zopa plus due to selling fees and loans can take as long as 45+ days to earn interest. 1% cannot even be achieved within 3 months because of the selling fees, and deferred loan repayment.
Q: Would I be comfortable investing the Zopa Core?
A: No at the moment, the 4% return is far too low for the risk involved, selling fees and the process of selling really put me off investing. Zopa Core is suitable for someone wants to invest for 5 years without reinvesting and have repayment paying to bank account avoiding the selling fees. It is very suitable for someone to invest longer terms and do not have the intention to withdraw any money from Zopa. Once you started thinking withdrawing money greater than monthly repayment, the fee will lower the return of any zopa products.
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Post by BrianC on Apr 14, 2018 22:34:40 GMT
After detailing my poor Plus performance above a few days ago it got me thinking and made me realise I really did need to cut my losses. I had £7600 left in plus and asked to sell all that I could. Have just been able to withdraw £6000 from the site but expect the rest may not be so quick to sell if ever. I’d expect after the fee and further defaults I’ll probably see just about all of my 11 year Zopa profits wiped out by my Plus gamble, if not more! A large loss in real times.
Yes I’ve just paid 1% for the privilege of selling those loans and Marg May have come good but that withdrawn money can now go somewhere much safer and less stressful. I imagine I’ll be tied to Zopa for years tho with future defaults and small default repayments.
It’s been an interesting 11 years but that’s me almost out for good.
Good luck to those of you still investing/gambling with this outfit!
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ashtondav
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Post by ashtondav on Apr 15, 2018 8:00:18 GMT
So, am I the only one who is making precisely the returns advertised? Despite that I am really annoyed that Zopa does not address the concerns and returns of “the emails unlucky”.
i can only assume, based on zopa’s Monthly lending stats, that investors who actually make money do not post on this forum!
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gg
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Post by gg on Apr 15, 2018 8:27:26 GMT
I fell out with Zopa a few years ago and withdrew my money in favour of a RateSetter. It was not about the rates.
that said, you shouldn’t give up on defaulted loans. I have made a number of minor withdrawals since my balance was zero as defaulted loans get repaid. I’ve lost interest in tracking the details.
If anyone expects 11%, whatever the spin from Zopa, then they are fools. Ask yourselves, who would borrow at more than about 4 or 5%? Certainly not the credit-worthy.
Too many lenders and not enough borrowers. Zopa trying to be all things to all people.
gg
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cb25
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Post by cb25 on Apr 15, 2018 8:32:50 GMT
I've been in Zopa since Sept 2016. The returns on my Zopa Plus account is about 3% lower YTD in 2018 than it was in 2017 (my figures, not Zopa's). Also, the monthly Bad Debt which averaged around 42% of monthly Interest in 2017 is averaging around 73% in 2018 (Jan-Mar). The Bad Debt moved higher in Oct 2017 and has stayed high ever since. Could be just random chance, hard to say. I'm currently running down my Z+ account when money is paid back, typically putting it in AC.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Apr 15, 2018 9:19:45 GMT
I fell out with Zopa a few years ago and withdrew my money in favour of a RateSetter. It was not about the rates. that said, you shouldn’t give up on defaulted loans. I have made a number of minor withdrawals since my balance was zero as defaulted loans get repaid. I’ve lost interest in tracking the details. If anyone expects 11%, whatever the spin from Zopa, then they are fools. Ask yourselves, who would borrow at more than about 4 or 5%? Certainly not the credit-worthy. Too many lenders and not enough borrowers. Zopa trying to be all things to all people. gg I think the headline rate might have been as high as 11% at one point, but with very big expected losses to give maybe a 5-6% projected. I think Zopa have reduced the % of D and E loans to give a slightly lower headline rate and a bit lower projected. I'm fairly close to the current projected. I don't have access to my account at the moment so can't give exact figures.
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Apr 15, 2018 9:25:39 GMT
So, am I the only one who is making precisely the returns advertised? Despite that I am really annoyed that Zopa does not address the concerns and returns of “the emails unlucky”. i can only assume, based on zopa’s Monthly lending stats, that investors who actually make money do not post on this forum! Well, there's only one way to find out......POLLLLLL!!!!!! ![]() 
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aju
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Post by aju on Apr 15, 2018 9:51:38 GMT
So, am I the only one who is making precisely the returns advertised? Despite that I am really annoyed that Zopa does not address the concerns and returns of “the emails unlucky”. i can only assume, based on zopa’s Monthly lending stats, that investors who actually make money do not post on this forum! I also am confused by the losses being discussed here it might be case of averages in that there has to be some who are getting worse numbers and some getting better. The other thing is that this forum is only reaching probably less than 0.0001% of lenders anyway. Add in the fact that not everyone will be monitoring this at anything like the level we are. Then its also the case that only those who are watching this at a more granular level than perhaps is helpful and you have more annoyance and concerns. All that said i am certainly not confident of my investment but by the same token i am investing much larger amounts and as a result seeing more defaults. Rather that pull my investment i did a bit of analysis an it seems to me that my defaults are bang or even below zopas predictions to date. That said its not really helpful for those above who are sitting on what seems like quite worrying default levels. I'm sure their positions are as they say and are real but i struggle with some of the measures we may be dealing with. For me a months level of analysis is not a level to work with after all we are investing in mostly a 5 year product. Relending is also important to zopas figures as well. Of course it does smart a little when they arrive but it needs to be in context and sadly i feel anything less than 18 months to 2 years is more reasonable measure cycle. Another thing about zopas figures for plus is the top line is a best figure as soon as the 1st default hits that will be reduced, the low figure is the only one i have personally felt should be used when considering an investment in plus. My other way of mitigating was also to spread investment across products. After all that said i could still be in for a shock but so far i am at least beating the banks! 
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