firedog
Member of DD Central
Posts: 367
Likes: 461
|
Post by firedog on Sept 24, 2024 14:39:14 GMT
The clue is in the name, Assetz, and the traps, expenses, overheads and 'connected businesses' needing paid, suspect valuations, disposal, unknowns like the cladding scandal or goverment clampdowns or flooding are exactly the same as property partner or any other similar type of investment. Once the dividends go, valuations drop, secondary market becomes a fire sale. Also, what you say about previous businesses that have specialised in this model is important to consider, Property Partner and Property Moose. They've all been disasters. Many of these P2P platforms do well in the initial phases and a few investors will rave about them during the honeymoon period when things appear to be going hunky dory and the issues are hidden from them. Then after a few years, things begin to go south. Soon all the five star reviews on Trustpilot are followed by an endless stream of one star reviews, with investors crying about not being able to get their invested money back etc. etc. After the platform staggers on for a while as a wounded beast, it eventually dies. Then investors have to suffer a five year administration process. It's happened with too many P2P networks, so the risks are there with Assetz Exchange. Assetz Exchange is a sister business of Assetz Capital and, with the track-record of how the shared Director, Stuart Law, has abysmally 'managed' operations and how disdainfully he treats investors, it is highly likely Assetz Exchange will eventually go bust and investors lose their capital. Don't say you weren't warned when you lose all your money. You see how everyone is complaining about Mohamed Al-Fayed now, but it's too late. Stuart Law is a walking, talking car crash of a businessman and the input and association he has had on Assetz Exchange means it is destined to eventually fail. You're certainly better informed than me about Property Partner and Property Moose (I'm only peripherally aware of them): but if they also provided long-term leases with full internal repairing clauses to regulated third-sector organisations and did all this with a staff of three, then absolutely valid point. No argument about Stuart Law (which surely could have been made without the crass and tasteless comparison to Al-Fayed), but how long is a company going to be sullied by association with someone who never AFAIK had an active role in it, is no longer a director and who is, I understand, divesting himself of his shares, or already has. I think AE deserve to be judged – for good or ill – on their own performance and thus far I've been happy. Of course, that can change: every investor knows by heart that past performance does not guarantee the future. I was only reporting to the OP on my own experience.
|
|
theta
Posts: 46
Likes: 44
|
Post by theta on Sept 24, 2024 17:34:52 GMT
The low potential returns that Assetz Exchange offers are not worth the extremely high risk. There's no logic to putting one's funds into a very high risk investment for such a low yield. ; A comment on the seeming low yield: As the yield on offer is linked to properties and long term inflation linked leases, it is not directly comparable to nominal yields on shorter term loans. I would personally prefer a 7% inflation linked yield on a 10 or 15 yr lease to a nominal yield of 10% on a 1 or 2 year loan. The former will increase every year, the latter will have reinvestment risk. On the overall risk, there's certainly a lot of it. Firstly there's the property market itself: real estate can certainly have a prolonged bear market. Then there's the risk of tenants failing to pay the rent or renew the leases. Even though most of them have some form of government backing, that can easily change. Then there is the platform risk. It is a small platform and if they somehow were to fail, new property management would need to be found (which to be fair requires only minimal work as most tenants have full repairing leases). As for the association with Assetz Capital, it is mostly historical and only in the name at this point, and as I understand it this is also going to change soon. Overall the risk/reward seems attractive to me, but to each their own. I am more of an equity/real assets type of investor, so I may be biased from that point of view.
|
|
angrysaveruk
Member of DD Central
Say No To T.D.S
Posts: 1,309 
Likes: 775
|
Post by angrysaveruk on Sept 25, 2024 8:47:33 GMT
There is no way I would go into P2P today, interest rates and returns on low risk assets have gone from next to 0% to close to 5%. Couple that with the fact that the amount of new money flowing into P2P is probably a fraction of what it was in around 2013-2016 meaning the risk of platforms going bust and liquidity problems is very real. In my opinion western economies are going to be facing something on the scale of the great depression in the next 10 years with the end of the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency - no way I want to be exposed to sub prime P2P loans.
|
|
theta
Posts: 46
Likes: 44
|
Post by theta on Sept 25, 2024 9:31:09 GMT
There is no way I would go into P2P today, interest rates and returns on low risk assets have gone from next to 0% to close to 5%. Couple that with the fact that the amount of new money flowing into P2P is probably a fraction of what it was in around 2013-2016 meaning the risk of platforms going bust and liquidity problems is very real. In my opinion western economies are going to be facing something on the scale of the great depression in the next 10 years with the end of the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency - no way I want to be exposed to sub prime P2P loans. Lots of things to dissect here. - Rates on low risk assets: These spiked and are now coming down. Yields on higher risk assets should follow, just as they did with the tightening cycle we just had.
- Money flow to P2P: This is a function of the previous point and happens with a bigger lag than more liquid assets such as equities and bonds. As the loosening cycle continues, P2P will become increasingly attractive again (or less unattractive) and flows will pick up. But I do agree that at the moment they are still not attractive in comparison (particularly looking at after tax yield where low coupon gilts are much better), which is why I have been withdrawing from most platforms (Assetz Exchange the only exception for reasons I explained previously).
- Crisis for western economies on the scale of the great depression and end of the Dollar as global reserve currency: Absolutely not. Neither is happening any time soon. Western economies are doing just fine, having just gone successfully through yet another crisis. Particularly wrong on the great depression comparison, because the major issue at the time, a deflationary debt spiral, is not happening today with all major economies using elastic currencies instead of tying themselves to the straightjacket that is the gold standard. So any financial weakness is and will be met with a supporting mix of fiscal and monetary policy assistance, with the risk manifesting itself in the form of inflation. Hence risk assets as a whole are going to continue to do just fine in nominal terms even though of course some will suffer in real terms, but crucially, there won't be another great depression, the best you can hope for in terms of having the opportunity to buy cheap assets is something like the 2020 or 2022 fire sale. The dollar isn't losing reserve status either while the US economy is by far the strongest in the world. And if that stops being the case, because some other economy will be stronger, it won't cause a crisis, it will just mean that more global flows happen in that other currency, just like it happened gradually 100 years ago with sterling passing the baton to the dollar.
|
|
|
|
Post by Chimponaughty on Sept 25, 2024 9:43:42 GMT
Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Spread your funds across a few P2P platforms. A few suggestions for reasonable risk v returns... Loanpad, Invest & Fund, Kuflink, CrowdProperty, Unbolted, Lendwise, Elfin Market
|
|
|
|
Post by df on Sept 25, 2024 17:58:26 GMT
No question P2P now has a chequered past, lost out badly on Lendy/Moneything, suffering hugely on Abundance, Assetz to be decided! Doing better on Unbolted, Loanpad, Kuflink, Elfin FOR NOW! BUT knowing all we know now is there anywhere you would still allocate fresh funds too?? I'm de-risking from stock market and have some spare capital, debating whether to put some into P2P again for first time in a long time. My p2p allocation is very low now, but I'm still actively investing with Unbolted, Elfin Market, RebuildingSociety and Qardus. I'd still use Kuflink if they didn't introduce minimum £500 per loan rule and will probably start using Loanpad again when/if the rate gap between FSCS protected products and Loanpad gets a bit wider. I wouldn't recommend Rebs and Q if you need to deploy funds quickly, the loans flow is very slow and it takes long time to build a reasonably diversified portfolio.
|
|
angrysaveruk
Member of DD Central
Say No To T.D.S
Posts: 1,309
Likes: 775
|
Post by angrysaveruk on Sept 25, 2024 18:01:12 GMT
There is no way I would go into P2P today, interest rates and returns on low risk assets have gone from next to 0% to close to 5%. Couple that with the fact that the amount of new money flowing into P2P is probably a fraction of what it was in around 2013-2016 meaning the risk of platforms going bust and liquidity problems is very real. In my opinion western economies are going to be facing something on the scale of the great depression in the next 10 years with the end of the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency - no way I want to be exposed to sub prime P2P loans. Lots of things to dissect here. - Rates on low risk assets: These spiked and are now coming down. Yields on higher risk assets should follow, just as they did with the tightening cycle we just had.
- Money flow to P2P: This is a function of the previous point and happens with a bigger lag than more liquid assets such as equities and bonds. As the loosening cycle continues, P2P will become increasingly attractive again (or less unattractive) and flows will pick up. But I do agree that at the moment they are still not attractive in comparison (particularly looking at after tax yield where low coupon gilts are much better), which is why I have been withdrawing from most platforms (Assetz Exchange the only exception for reasons I explained previously).
- Crisis for western economies on the scale of the great depression and end of the Dollar as global reserve currency: Absolutely not. Neither is happening any time soon. Western economies are doing just fine, having just gone successfully through yet another crisis. Particularly wrong on the great depression comparison, because the major issue at the time, a deflationary debt spiral, is not happening today with all major economies using elastic currencies instead of tying themselves to the straightjacket that is the gold standard. So any financial weakness is and will be met with a supporting mix of fiscal and monetary policy assistance, with the risk manifesting itself in the form of inflation. Hence risk assets as a whole are going to continue to do just fine in nominal terms even though of course some will suffer in real terms, but crucially, there won't be another great depression, the best you can hope for in terms of having the opportunity to buy cheap assets is something like the 2020 or 2022 fire sale. The dollar isn't losing reserve status either while the US economy is by far the strongest in the world. And if that stops being the case, because some other economy will be stronger, it won't cause a crisis, it will just mean that more global flows happen in that other currency, just like it happened gradually 100 years ago with sterling passing the baton to the dollar.
|
|
|
|
Post by BenAssetzExchange on Sept 25, 2024 18:32:56 GMT
Assetz Exchange is a sister business of Assetz Capital and, with the track-record of how the shared Director, Stuart Law, has abysmally 'managed' operations and how disdainfully he treats investors, it is highly likely Assetz Exchange will eventually go bust and investors lose their capital. Don't say you weren't warned when you lose all your money. You see how everyone is complaining about Mohamed Al-Fayed now, but it's too late. Stuart Law is a walking, talking car crash of a businessman and the input and association he has had on Assetz Exchange means it is destined to eventually fail. Just to interject here, we are not a sister business of AC and never have been. There is no parent company, the only link we ever had was a common director (who also had a large minority shareholidng in each company) and the word Assetz. Stuart never had an active role in the business. Stuart resigned as a director of Assetz Exchange some months ago now and is no longer a shareholder. There is no link whatsoever with any other company Stuart is involved with nor is there any contact. Our number one priority now is changing our name and doing a full rebrand and this is well underway. We have a very loyal investor base who interact regularly with us and we are keen to grow the business and provide more supporting living homes. I understand why some are sceptical while we retain the word Assetz in our name (we have wanted to ditch it for years) but there are no links now whatsoever other than some of the money some of us ourselves have locked up in AC. We are far from impressed with what happened there. Happy to debate anything about our business you like on merit but some of the things said in this thread are plain untrue.
|
|
|
|
Post by df on Sept 25, 2024 19:18:43 GMT
There is no way I would go into P2P today, interest rates and returns on low risk assets have gone from next to 0% to close to 5%. Couple that with the fact that the amount of new money flowing into P2P is probably a fraction of what it was in around 2013-2016 meaning the risk of platforms going bust and liquidity problems is very real. In my opinion western economies are going to be facing something on the scale of the great depression in the next 10 years with the end of the Dollar as the worlds reserve currency - no way I want to be exposed to sub prime P2P loans. It doesn't really matter how much money is flowing into p2p, each platform performs on their own merits. Yes, a lot of them collapsed in one way or another but this is not necessarily the prescription for the ones that currently function. I agree about "the Dollar", not sure about "10 years" estimate, but it is slowly moving that way. However, I don't think this will have a significant impact on p2p industry.
|
|
