|
|
Post by uncletone on Dec 13, 2015 22:55:29 GMT
Just need to keep reading and learning. It's a lifetime's work for some of us. Don't weaken! 
|
|
jonno
Member of DD Central
nil satis nisi optimum
Posts: 2,808 
Likes: 3,242
|
Post by jonno on Dec 14, 2015 11:56:53 GMT
Thanks for replies so far. I think I am wanting to invest around £20k~ across many loans. As it would give me a reasonable return. Just need to keep reading and learning. The second most valuable lesson I learned after diversification is patience. In my early P2P investing I put too much onto a few loans on one platform in an attempt to get a "Critical Mass" of investments. Some have hit trouble and there are certainly at least two on which I potentially risk losing far more than I would want. I haven't actually lost anything yet but I have now got a much more comfortable spread across that platform, along with a number of others.
|
|
|
|
Post by snappyfish on Dec 14, 2015 13:49:19 GMT
Thanks for replies so far. I think I am wanting to invest around £20k~ across many loans. As it would give me a reasonable return. Just need to keep reading and learning. The second most valuable lesson I learned after diversification is patience. In my early P2P investing I put too much onto a few loans on one platform in an attempt to get a "Critical Mass" of investments. Some have hit trouble and there are certainly at least two on which I potentially risk losing far more than I would want. I haven't actually lost anything yet but I have now got a much more comfortable spread across that platform, along with a number of others. I may be falling into that bracket.. Might need to put some on SM and go easy.. I understand it's all risk and maybe I am being a little stupid as I have read "mainly" good reports about P2P Investments. And I am the type of person who has money because I am not stupid with it. If I dont need it I wont buy it etc Anyway feeling nervous 
|
|
bigfoot12
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,817
Likes: 816
|
Post by bigfoot12 on Dec 14, 2015 14:04:15 GMT
The second most valuable lesson I learned after diversification is patience. In my early P2P investing I put too much onto a few loans on one platform in an attempt to get a "Critical Mass" of investments. Some have hit trouble and there are certainly at least two on which I potentially risk losing far more than I would want. I haven't actually lost anything yet but I have now got a much more comfortable spread across that platform, along with a number of others. I may be falling into that bracket.. Might need to put some on SM and go easy.. I understand it's all risk and maybe I am being a little stupid as I have read "mainly" good reports about P2P Investments. And I am the type of person who has money because I am not stupid with it. If I dont need it I wont buy it etc Anyway feeling nervous I'd be careful of the secondary market. Maybe the seller knows something you don't. My early experience on Thin Cats taught me to be wary; I bought a few bits on the secondary market and several defaulted, much worse (though statistically not necessarily significant) than expected. Remember the seller might know, or suspect something, perhaps a previous payment was a few days late, or the accounts are late being filed, or the accounts aren't as good as expected, or they live near a building project and can see it is behind schedule and so on. My advice would be to avoid secondary markets until you have more experience with the primary market. Find out how many new loans get listed each month, estimate the proportion that you might want to own and multiply that by your holding per loan and put that much in each month. Pick at least two or three platforms. You might have to wait until January - I expect little to be listed on most platforms now until mid January. Most on this forum do have good experiences, but it is worth being careful.
|
|
adrianc
Member of DD Central
Posts: 10,041
Likes: 5,156
|
Post by adrianc on Dec 14, 2015 14:11:01 GMT
I think I am wanting to invest around £20k~ across many loans. What sort of percentage of your total wealth is that? Do you own your own property? With or without a mortgage? In what sort of timescale do you think you might need access to the money?
|
|
kaya
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,150
Likes: 718
|
Post by kaya on Dec 14, 2015 14:27:09 GMT
Be careful, but don't be nervous! Have a punt!
|
|
|
|
Post by many38 on Dec 14, 2015 14:32:38 GMT
Thanks for replies so far. I think I am wanting to invest around £20k~ across many loans. As it would give me a reasonable return. Just need to keep reading and learning. Sharing 6 years experience, I started with Z... but found it boring and with ever decreasing rates I'm nearly all out now. Overlapped 5 years ago with Funny Critters and made the mistake of trusting their risk assessors and put more in the A+ than the Bs. That's where my only losses are so I've learned my lesson and am only in loans secured on property now. Have diversified to 2 other P2P sites with loans secured on assets where I think there is far less risk than with businesses. As other people have said it just takes patience so have a rest over the festive season, there won't be much activity.
|
|
|
|
Post by snappyfish on Dec 14, 2015 20:49:35 GMT
I think I am wanting to invest around £20k~ across many loans. What sort of percentage of your total wealth is that? Do you own your own property? With or without a mortgage? In what sort of timescale do you think you might need access to the money? Around 15% of total wealth, don't own and no mortgage. In no hurry to get access.
|
|
|
|
Post by ablrateandy on Dec 14, 2015 22:48:49 GMT
Start in your comfort zone. I'm lucky because I've done something similar as a career so have a wide comfort zone... but still wouldn't touch a lot of things! A good basic starting point is "Can I see this company still existing in X months time and repaying in full?". Ignore the figures, ignore the security and have a gut feeling about it. If you are comfortable with the concept, go back and look at the figures and the security.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2015 10:43:40 GMT
Just completed my first year, running at about 10% which includes allowances for losses (though nothing major yet), followed the 1% rule on just about everything but stuff I feel very comfortable where I've moved to 2%. Don't trust any rating by a portal, read the details and put yourself in the position of the person running the business that wants the money. In more than half the cases I've reviewed that has helped me de-select them. For instance when a company says it needs to buy a truck, ask the following,
1) how many logistics companies make high profits? (virtually none of them)
2) if an expert cannot make profits why would a company play at being a truck user, unless, this truck is doing loads of other things
About 9 months ago I did my 20 rules for selection. It makes you invest slowly but safely. What I have found is read this forum, lots of free wisdom litter these threads.
|
|
alanp
Member of DD Central
Posts: 168
Likes: 72
|
Post by alanp on Dec 15, 2015 16:51:57 GMT
I've only been in this for about a month and am slowly finding my feet.
Small amount (compared to a few by the sound of it) overall earmarked for P2P (£2500 - £3000) with about half that invested to date.
Made mistakes already but learning and revising. As said lots of useful information spread across here, some of which makes more sense now that I have dipped my toe in the water and have experience on some of the platforms.
I guess your 1% rule @bobo is no more than 1% of your investment into any one loan? How do you deal with multiple loans to the same borrower as in some of those offered on MT and Ablerate?
|
|
|
|
Post by snappyfish on Dec 15, 2015 17:35:30 GMT
I've only been in this for about a month and am slowly finding my feet. Small amount (compared to a few by the sound of it) overall earmarked for P2P (£2500 - £3000) with about half that invested to date. Made mistakes already but learning and revising. As said lots of useful information spread across here, some of which makes more sense now that I have dipped my toe in the water and have experience on some of the platforms. I guess your 1% rule @bobo is no more than 1% of your investment into any one loan? How do you deal with multiple loans to the same borrower as in some of those offered on MT and Ablerate? That is how I started thinking around 2 months ago (£2500 - £3000), and my confidence grew just from reading here and other forums & web articles about p2p .. I think I jumped a little to soon... but I guess my rewards will be higher but loses could hurt. If I'm honest my brain is working overtime now and I don't know what to do for the best.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2015 17:47:32 GMT
I've only been in this for about a month and am slowly finding my feet. Small amount (compared to a few by the sound of it) overall earmarked for P2P (£2500 - £3000) with about half that invested to date. Made mistakes already but learning and revising. As said lots of useful information spread across here, some of which makes more sense now that I have dipped my toe in the water and have experience on some of the platforms. I guess your 1% rule @bobo is no more than 1% of your investment into any one loan? How do you deal with multiple loans to the same borrower as in some of those offered on MT and Ablerate? Alan, great question, I let them roll up to about 5% and then stop, with the short loans on MT not such a problem and I wouldn't touch AR with a barge pole. The big struggle has been with AC and their wind turbines, while the rates are poor the stability of gov based payments is just too succulent. (Never said I was perfect). I went through a phase of buying a bigger chunk and them selling off in the SM when everything hit a dry patch, again this occurred over a short period of time and things tend not to go bust in the first few months, finally the target amount (the 100%) that you aim for at the start of the investment phase may not be the same as that at the end. I started with a target of 40,000 and now is 125,000 so old loans are smaller. What I did do is develop a spreadsheet, not for the fine detail, but to keep an eye on the gross targets and rates for each portal to ensure I balanced my investments to the right one. After all RS is easy to invest in but the rates are poor so it gives you a firm but frugal base to you investment. Along the journey FC went un-investable so I'm flushing out the cash as it becomes free and I can see easily where it should end up. I'm limiting each portal to 35,000. The benefit of this level of investment is you hit your targets. Going forward I'll probably modify my SSheet to maintain the investment levels.
|
|
alanp
Member of DD Central
Posts: 168
Likes: 72
|
Post by alanp on Dec 15, 2015 18:47:57 GMT
Thanks @bobo, interesting to see other's thought processes.
Out of interest why the comments re AR and FC?
|
|
|
|
Post by Butch Cassidy on Dec 15, 2015 20:55:09 GMT
Thanks for replies so far. I think I am wanting to invest around £20k~ across many loans. As it would give me a reasonable return. Just need to keep reading and learning. As others have already said; Do your research & then diversify (on both platforms & then loans), be patient, take advantage of other investors DD (on both this forum & loan Q&A), but ULTIMATELY ONLY INVEST INTO PLATFORMS/LOANS WHICH YOU UNDERSTAND & ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. The last one varies from person to person - higher returns invariably come with higher risk & you need to understand what they are & how your own appetite fits across the P2P spectrum.
£20k would allow a spread of 4/5 upto 10 platforms but possibly not all equal allocations; my own split (largest to smaller/tests); AC, FC, SS, MT, Bondora, LC, Rebs, AR, Mintos they all have pros & cons but with the exception of Bondora, which has significantly changed since I invested, I would recommend that they were all worth investigating - I don't use RS, Zopa, FS, Twino but they also seem popular. Best thing for a learner IMO is to open accounts & fund with a small test investment & then sit back for 3-6 months & see how it develops & be satisfied that any inevitable mistakes/losses will be very limited in financial impact (easier said than done for a keen starter!) - Good Luck
|
|
