quidco
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Post by quidco on Oct 24, 2016 15:17:18 GMT
Steerpike said virtually everything there is to say. Forget the dream of a secondary market... i have been investing from when the initial investment was 10k and nothing has changed. I have several issues with LI however it is still my to go platform when I have excess cash to invest, willing to commit to a year and can't find any better options. Another member Samford71 would probably disagree... He has written some good pieces on how its better to invest directly into their funds... (think Montello etc..) Can earn a few percentage points extra.... Search his name.. worth valuable information. I looked into the funds but my SIPP provider didn't offer them. The Lend Invest person who was pushing the funds to me didn't seem to think it was their responsibility to get the funds accepted more widely on the various platforms. I'm not sure how these things work but the SIPP provider just said to me it was not on their list. Someone has to make some effort to get on the list.
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upland
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Post by upland on Oct 25, 2016 7:07:01 GMT
I've expressed a few criticisms of the website to them none of which seem to have been incorporated into the new version other than you can now see how much you have already invested in available loans. I try to diversify as a form of risk management but it is not clearly shown how many loans are to the same developer / property manager. If a borrower gets into difficulties then it will probably affect all their properties so suddenly you have several distressed loans that you didn't know were connected. Having the interest paid monthly into your bank account is a good feature. Especially attractive to retirees I imagine. I think it's been mentioned that strictly speaking LendInvest is a secondary market as these are loans that Montello have already made and feed through to their hungry but tame retail clients. They don't seem to have made any move towards letting lenders sell to each other. Apparently they've moved their web development in house. I wonder if this is a classic business mistake - their core competency is presumably loan origination and debt management not software development. the new version has less functionality in areas than the previous version which is also a classic mistake likely to put off your users, e.g. you can't generate a tax statement anymore. I have normally assumed that the loans were all independent (unlike FC) which was part of its attraction to me. Am I being naive ?
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quidco
Member of DD Central
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Post by quidco on Oct 25, 2016 7:39:24 GMT
I kind of assumed the opposite given the loans are often for 12 months and for a specific property. Lend Invest have said they work with a set of developers they know and trust. It made sense to me that these developers would have more than one project in any 12 month period and that therefore I'd lent to the same one more than once. Obviously the security is clearly defined for each loan.
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upland
Member of DD Central
Posts: 479
Likes: 175
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Post by upland on Oct 25, 2016 7:58:54 GMT
I kind of assumed the opposite given the loans are often for 12 months and for a specific property. Lend Invest have said they work with a set of developers they know and trust. It made sense to me that these developers would have more than one project in any 12 month period and that therefore I'd lent to the same one more than once. Obviously the security is clearly defined for each loan. I had not realised that , many thanks. I shall be a bit more wary. I quite like LI , it strikes me as quite good at producing 'nice' loans on mainly liquid propositions which I thought has had little default problems. Lowish risk and average but steady returns was my view. I fight shy of the complicated FC deals now. I did not know that they have apparently moved their website development in house. I agree its a classic mistake and explains the alarming difference between old and new.
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Oct 25, 2016 8:09:29 GMT
I did not know that they have apparently moved their website development in house. I agree its a classic mistake and explains the alarming difference between old and new. Which explains why the boss thought it was good; being managed by someone who hasn't a clue whose speciality it isn't.
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quidco
Member of DD Central
Posts: 295
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Post by quidco on Oct 25, 2016 10:24:41 GMT
I kind of assumed the opposite given the loans are often for 12 months and for a specific property. Lend Invest have said they work with a set of developers they know and trust. It made sense to me that these developers would have more than one project in any 12 month period and that therefore I'd lent to the same one more than once. Obviously the security is clearly defined for each loan. I had not realised that , many thanks. I shall be a bit more wary. I quite like LI , it strikes me as quite good at producing 'nice' loans on mainly liquid propositions which I thought has had little default problems. Lowish risk and average but steady returns was my view. I fight shy of the complicated FC deals now. I did not know that they have apparently moved their website development in house. I agree its a classic mistake and explains the alarming difference between old and new. Yes of my Peer to Peer experience Lend Invest has been the best, a good balance between relative security and reward. They said to me they moved development in house so they could add functionality more quickly as required. I'm not sure that's the full story as there are many consultancies that will develop for you presumably to timescales you find amenable. The migration has been pretty crude. For example, they now seem to have an entirely new database that only starts in October with the launch of the new site and all our previous transaction data prior to that is presumably on an "old" database that is not available for interrogation directly by end users. Hence you can't see what interest you were paid in the dim and distant past, e..g September 2016...
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Steerpike
Member of DD Central
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Post by Steerpike on Oct 25, 2016 15:15:17 GMT
Given the traditional LI paucity of information on loans, the "new improved" website with reduced functionality and inaccurate or missing data, and the recent apparent nose dive in loan attractiveness e.g. 6.75% on 75% LTV mixed resi/commercial, for me, the shine is coming off.
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gibmike
Member of DD Central
What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Posts: 256
Likes: 160
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Post by gibmike on Oct 25, 2016 20:23:15 GMT
Tough one for LendInvest, they are obviously aiming at floatation so the clean, calm 6-7.5% bracket allows them to pick and choose the "wins". Might not be everyones cup of tea but with 0% (or as close to) defaults they are building a reputation as a safe squeaky clean P2P platform.
I am happy with that as part of my P2P portfolio.
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