JamesFrance
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Post by JamesFrance on Jan 24, 2015 17:08:57 GMT
I have been looking for an alternative to Bondora which can be joined by EU residents, as I am having difficulty with reinvesting repayments. I am planning to try a new P2P site in Latvia where the loans are secured against property. mintos.lv/en/Any opinions would be welcome.
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Post by ablrateandy on Jan 26, 2015 11:14:55 GMT
One thing to bear in mind when looking at the fringes of Europe is currency risks. It was not an uncommon practice for people in Eastern Europe to take out foreign currency mortgages over the last fifteen years. In Latvia, most people did it in EUR, so obviously that is fine now as it is no longer foreign currency. However, in Poland, for example, there are a lot of people with CHF mortgages who now face repayments that suddenly rose 30% this month. Doubtless many of them will be desperate to re-finance.
- It doesn't apply to every mortgage - The Polish government is intimating that it is likely to step in and bail out those people
And I have never looked closely enough at any property-funding site to see whether any such properties may be affected....but it is certainly a risk worth bearing in mind when dipping a toe into a new market with people willing to pay what look like substantial interest rates!
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Jan 26, 2015 14:35:11 GMT
One thing to bear in mind when looking at the fringes of Europe is currency risks. ..... JamesFrance lives in Euroland I assume, as do I so for us GBP is a currency risk
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debeast
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Post by debeast on Jan 27, 2015 7:51:09 GMT
Thanks So how do the rates compare to bondora though ? And is there much on there? If these is i might sign up! Thanks N
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JamesFrance
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Post by JamesFrance on Jan 27, 2015 9:12:13 GMT
It is not really comparable to Bondora as all the loans are secured against the owner's properties. The interest rates range from 12 to 20% but the platform deducts 2% so presumably the borrower is not paying much higher rates than lenders are receiving.
There are currently 62 loans available for investment, all initially funded by Mintos since September so most already making repayments, which they will continue to do under their regulations, they will also keep a portion of all their loans. You can set uo an auto invest which will buy parts from them without premium or charges. Each loan part comes with a lengthy pdf assignment document and all the properties have professional valuations including photos..
I have made my first loans now and will continue to invest, as I very much like the way they have set up their platform and systems. Everything is very clear, almost as if they have been reading the forum and taking lenders views into account when designing their method of working.
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gb007
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Post by gb007 on Jan 27, 2015 9:26:08 GMT
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debeast
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Post by debeast on Jan 27, 2015 13:58:58 GMT
Security = Great news. I shall take a look . Thank you and thanks for the wiseclerk link too!
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debeast
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Post by debeast on Jan 27, 2015 14:21:56 GMT
Just signed up wow that was easy. Just waiting for Transfer wise payment to go over then i can have a dabble. Looks like a very easy to use market as well.
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JamesFrance
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Post by JamesFrance on Jan 27, 2015 16:26:28 GMT
I now have 30 loans with interest rates of 15% and over, all by using auto invest and most having made a few payments already, none of them overdue. My first small repayment happened today and my net annual return after charges is shown as 14.5%. It will be interesting to see if this changes as more repayments are made.
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Steerpike
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Post by Steerpike on Jan 27, 2015 18:16:39 GMT
Looks enticing but I don't understand why residential owners would pay 15% when presumably standard mortgages are available at about 7%.
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debeast
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Post by debeast on Jan 27, 2015 19:41:16 GMT
The loans aren't for a mortgage but for something else. They are putting the property up as security. Thats my understanding /beastie
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Jan 27, 2015 22:29:16 GMT
The loans aren't for a mortgage but for something else. They are putting the property up as security. Thats my understanding I don't think it should make any difference whether the loan is to purchase property or for another purpose. If loans secured on residential property are available for 7% then 15% does seem a bit expensive by comparison. Having said that, though, those 7% loans might come with substantial upfront fees that mean if the borrower only needs the money for a short period that loan actually is more expensivve than the headline 7% rate. What sort of terms (duration) are the Mintos loans for? Is there a secondary market for loan parts?
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JamesFrance
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Post by JamesFrance on Jan 28, 2015 9:04:38 GMT
The loans are available for 3 to 120 months and your choice of maximum time can be set in auto invest. It seems that in a default situation Mintos would be able to sell the property as a last resort, but I believe that if they reschedule the loan they will buy back the loan parts from investors.
There is certainly a secondary market available. At the moment the loans have been prefunded by Mintos, which is a requirement of their regulation, so most of them are available direct from them without premium. They will continue to hold 5% of every loan, so when the rest is used up those loans will only be available from other investors who will set premiums and discounts.
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Post by gaspilot on Jan 28, 2015 11:08:50 GMT
In practice, how would this work for investors based in the UK? Would you need a euro bank account or could you transfer funds in £'s and they get converted to euros at the going exchange rate (+/- an associated fee)? Does anybody do this? The site looks good from what I can see at first glance.
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JamesFrance
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Post by JamesFrance on Jan 28, 2015 11:28:45 GMT
I see it is set up to withdraw to the account from which the initial deposits came, in my case a Euro account.
The cheapest way to convert from pounds to euros is to use Currencyfair or Transferwise, but you would have to ask Mintos whether they could process withdrawals that way and indeed if a deposit using one of them instead of a bank would be acceptable for them.
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