Liquidity...

Buying or selling?

Ablrate as it allows discounts/premiums
Landlordinvest but you will struggle to build a position
I have no issues with AC or FS when it comes to selling, buying depends on the loan but phased development loans are easy to pick up when new tranches launch

Your question is touching on a mountain of a topic.  It depends what you want from your liquidity.

Personally I use Assetz Quick Access and Funding Circle as the two sites where I expect to be able to realise 50% or more of my portfolio within a few days in most circumstances.  Those large liquid markets can handle large volumes of loans.

I do not use my Ablrate account as a source of liquidty because there are too few buyers.  Although Ablrate has a variable priced secondary market, that does not mean you can sell a large amount quickly.

There are two ways to sell loans on Ablrate: You can offer your loans for sale at a premium or discount and hope someone accepts your offer, or you can accept someone else's bid to buy your loans at the premium or discout they have chosen.
- I often offer my loans for sale.  Even when my offer puts me at the front of the queue for selling a loan on Ablrate, on many days I will sell nothing at all.
- So rather than sit waiting for buyers, you can instead accept bids that others have already made to buy your loans.  But if you want to sell a lot, you will notice that most bids are for tens or hundreds of pounds.  If selling a few hundred pounds of a loan at a loss is your requirement, Ablrate can meet it.  If you want to sell more you will need to look at platforms with more liquidity.

Moneything and Collateral have fairly liquid markets, a few months ago Moneything would commonly have nothing on it.

That's set to change now I feel. Just as some borrowers are connected across platforms, so are lenders as well - if you are holding a loan that goes slightly bad it'll be difficult to get out. The prognosis for sentiment I feel is not going to be good in the future, seeing as we still have some probable howlers coming our way in the next year. 

Cheers guys!

have read generally there is good liquidity on FS.

But with the loan periods being only 6 months and large loan amounts, does thi not make it difficult to find buyers for the loans?

Is there a good rule of thumb to follow when setting premiums/discounts...in the loan's life cycle?

But if you are looking to sell, a better guide of the price people are prepared to pay for loans are the bid prices, not the offer prices.

In that case we are in agreement that small volumes can be traded on Ablrate at sensible prices.

The point I am trying to make is that variable pricing lets you buy your way to the front of the queue but that should not be confused with liquidty - the volume you can realistically trade once you are at the front of the queue.  On Ablrate the secondary market demand is mostly for hundreds rather than thousands of pounds.  Investors needing more liquid secondary markets should look to other platforms.