Concerns re car refinance market

The next crisis won't be car loans. It will be student loans. Student loans are basically worthless unsecured debt notes and the default numbers are rising rapidly. At least with a car loan, there is an asset to possibly recover. Most students who can sign their name can get an unsecured student loan for amounts of money that will make you wonder what on earth the finance companies are thinking. 

Very good points, I hadn't considered Student Loans at all, and they certainly do seem a huge problem waiting & growing in the wings.

So that's student accommodation off my investment list as well!

Hear what you're saying bg, however I would think Auto Loans, at least in the US, could still potentially be as big a crisis because in the US almost *everyone has a car (or cars), not everyone had a house.  

(Not "everyone" per se, but certainly far more car owners than home owners).

To clarify, I was only talking about USA student loan debt which is now over $1.4 trillion, certainly a sizable problem. It's not uncommon for a US student to graduate with $150,000 in student debt. Not sure it's possible to pay that much for uni in the UK.

I don't think this is a reason to avoid p2p UK student accommodation developments specifically. If you are truly worried about student debt or car loan meltdowns, you'd probably want to avoid p2p altogether as any type of major financial crisis is likely to have major impacts on p2p as a whole. P2p is all about lender and borrower confidence, if the confidence goes and lenders run for the exits, well you know the what will likely follow.

@bobo, I totally agree with you. I think everyone's too focused on the US and Europe. Black swans appear where complacency is highest, and I think the Chinese real estate market is the biggest subprime bubble we've seen which nobody seems to believe can/will burst.

I was there recently, and people were still borrowing 80-90% LTV from the bank, and the remaining 10-20% deposit from P2P sites!!! Observers always say there are plenty of savings and reserves - but the reserves are dwindling fast, the savings are all invested in the shadow banking sector (e.g. P2P, "entrusted loans", "wealth management products"), which are ultimately all linked to the real estate market because Asia is a continent that is obsessed with the stuff.

A friend of mine recently encouraged me to put some money into Qingdao property (kind of like an up-and-coming Beijing/Shanghai), but I'm much happier making a c.10% yield on a Property Crowd senior secured bond, 50%+ LTV, short duration, UK real estate, rule of law, etc. 

Regards,
Charles

Well, yes - although the statistics aren't quite that bad, and I think the government makes a provision for write-offs from day one.

Student "loans" are really a disguised income tax, payable on average-or-above incomes only, with a lifetime cap.  The LibDems were crucified unfairly for something that, in all but name, is very similar to what they promised.