Augh****y, Co. Tyrone (2297673280 - final) DEFAULT (FS)

I find it interesting that there were such large investments considering that no bonuses were offered for larger investments.

With this exception, FS investors seem to be less than enthusiastic at the moment.  The four investments currently available have been available for some time, and activity on the SM seems to be low judging from the discounts sellers are offering in an attempt to attract buyers.

This one appealed to me as to my mind it's essentially a 1st charge bridging loan against the completed property, which is also reassuringly demonstrably for sale. Comparables suggest that perhaps the asking price will come down a way, but with the low-ish LTV I don't see that as being too much of an issue. The 2nd property may linger, but I'd have thought that the loan should be either significantly part-repaid or probably renewed once the first sells. Compared to what seems to be an endless parade of 'pass-the-parcel' holes in the ground lots recently, it seemed like a reasonable shout. Time will tell.

Re: the SM, I'm not sure if it's a lack of enthusiasm or simply the huge glut of loans that have been coming in waves of 3 or 4 a day for the last month causing an over-supply. The start of the new tax year will certainly help once we get there..

In this case the VR is recent, thorough  and completed by a quality valuer; again cant see a problem with the Maryport loan, but agree FS has accepted some very poor quality VR's especially the borrower supplied ones

Sounds about right.  I was last in the place about 30 years ago - the natives were not welcoming, although that may have been the uniform.  I reckon that post-Brexit there's a serious risk of the border area reverting to the Wild West it was in my day.  I'm running down in FS anyway but this one wouldn't get a penny of my money. 

Thanks as ever for your analysis. It really is refreshing to read such an honest account.
Thankfully though, I didn't take your advice or that of your esteemed associates, and got myself a nice chunk. 

I like you greenslime.  

michaelc:  I tend to order them by descending Effective Rate.  There have been times when the best rate available was around 15%, whereas right now the top rate is over 20% and there are more than 15 other loans showing parts available at returns over 16%.  That's what prompted my comment.

I accept that most of those are pretty short-dated, so they won't appeal to tax-paying investors, but FS have lots of business and ISA investors who could take advantage of those rates but are choosing not to.  I'd happily hold some of those loan parts in my own ISA, but it doesn't have any free cash at the moment and I can't add any more at this time. 

Perhaps the problem for business and ISA investors who are happy to buy short-dated parts is that there haven't been many loans repaid in recent weeks so there isn't much cash available to invest.  The accrued interest in my ISA at the moment is 8.0% of the face value of the parts, so if the portfolio average interest rate is 13% the average term calculates to be 225 days, and that means the portfolio contains a lot of overdue loans.