Why are so many loans up for sale at -1% ?

Very few repayments achieved recently, so limited cash being ploughed back into SM loans (and PM loans for that matter). Also a general sense that confidence in FS's ability to get loans repaid is now very low, so many lenders are withdrawing anything that does repay.

Unless FS pull their finger out and employ some experienced, professional "debt recovery" experts to tackle the ever growing list of zombie loans, filling new / renewal loans will become ever more difficult

With the pure number of loans that have been "almost there" for weeks and weeks, I wonder whether there's some dark web FS borrower consultancy service. It seems unbelievable that so many loans are so close.

Or, conspiracy theories aside, perhaps it'll be a london buses affair and we'll all be complaining about nothing at discount on the SM by the end of the week 

As usual small amounts in each loan that meet your personal criteria is not massive risk.I agree recovery and enforcement need a boost but FS is one of quickest to default allowing Tax offset for those unlucky enough not to have loans funded from their FISA. I still se no logical reason to offer a 178 day loan at loss of over £9.50/1000

Coming back to the OP  - it's been discussed quite a bit here in recent weeks (although wouldn't expect you to religiously tune in  )

Depending on who you ask, it's due to some combination of a heaving PM, (lost) confidence, and just a market cycle effect.

I've personally now sold off 90% of my FS stuff because I don't trust them enough to hold anything but the very very best loans to term. There haven't been many of those recently, and the market as it is prevents any value in selling slightly more fragrant loans off early (because you may well not be able to, as you can see).

Edit: And as bg completely correctly points out below, all of this is basically because FS aren't repaying anywhere near enough loans.

like a lot of others I have put all my loans on the SM - why because I have fed up of having my reasonable questions ignored by "non-answers" and and alarmed by the huge number of late running and defauted loans many of which strike me are going to be worse than the NI turbine diaster

As with all p2p it should be a holistic approach. Say you have £10000 too invest and you spread it over 200 loans even if 5% are very late or are even 100% loss your returns if in FISA is 7% APR after TAX (for 12% loans) if in your main account it would still fall within £1000 annual allowance and loss could be offset against any taxable interest if you have more invested in other P2P. Recoveries will reduce loss as and when they occur. I tend to buy high discount and sell low when nice people offer big initial savings. If nothing else it allows you to tempt others with large effective APRs later in loan life without you making less than base % and removing late/default risk for you. Lots of work but gives greater return for less risk than just buying and holding approx 18%. If you write off defaults in your own mind straight away it makes life much more simple. If you then get a payback it is like “Free money” for you to treat yourself . Bottom line is be happy with a tax free return of at least 5 times the bank rates. Lendy have lots of loans not defaulted but very overdue they at leas now ask investors to vote on various exit options. Perhaps this is a strategy FS should adopt on loans more than 180 days overdue. At least an early partial loss allows a chance to reinvest with ongoing recovery for balances due.