Time for a change of tack?

I think that's a sound strategy and I think you were wise. This is something that some here and elsewhere have preached for a while. As long as the investments are sound and diversified, you can tolerate individual failures without significant loss of return. It also takes a lot of stress out of it. You can sleep knowing the state of the SM does not matter, that when the next crisis comes along, you have more than a decent chance of at least getting your money back. That's vs buy anything with the hope of selling it to some other person in the hope the news hasn't already reached them. In the past, we've been spoilt by the liquidity in the Lendy SM, but things have certainly changed. I for one do not like to buy anything I would not want to hold to term, though given the opportunity, I might get out. It's a very nice facility to have, but one that cannot be counted on. The market is pretty saturated at this time with loans. With elections and whatnot, I am sure there will be a few 'market moments' over the coming months. Better to sleep easier knowing your loan is backed by what you consider a decent proposal and security.

Yes,  defaulted too much the same approach, miss being able to impulse buy on the SM and sell almost anything quickly, with luck and help from this forum I don't have anything outrageous and have settled on hold to completion for what I do have, cannot bring myself to dump investments behind £20,000+ earning no interest.  At least I don't login to see whats available and play fff just to get nothing these days.  5m steady on the SM who would have thought that a year ago?

At the moment I'm broadly in a holding pattern with regard to my strategy on Ly - I don't think the current lack of liquidity has been a factor long enough to draw any firm conclusions about the overall direction P2P (at either the micro or macro level) is heading - not yet.

However, The last few months have seen me make some tactical adjustments I have to admit. I'm another one who has generally sold early and not held anything to term (I totally exited LI primarily due to their lack of an SM (and abysmal interest rates)) - my exact selling point being dependent on the extant conditions with regard to my individual loans. Significantly, I have now decided I will no longer hold the largest loans (ball park - more than £2.5M) - and more specifically the larger DFL's (DFL012 being a prime example). I am aware that if too many lenders take this action this will become a massive headache for Ly - and others.

Furthermore, I have become somewhat troubled of late by some of the borrowers Ly are accepting for business - those with a known bad credit history in particular (and I'm being kind here).

The most significant impact on my lending to Ly has been my recent decision to reduce my overall cap on this platform. I am increasing my lending proportionately greater to MT an ABL - so whilst not overly spooked by recent developments in P2P in general I am taking mild precautions to reduce my exposure to those platforms I previously held in higher regard. The proportion of my overall portfolio in P2P remains the same - and that's likely higher than the more risk averse would consider wise.

I can empathise with those who postulate the 'hold to term and rely on your own DD to confirm appropriate security' approach to P2P. Conversely, If a loan like DFL012 did go 'belly up' (admittedly highly unlikely in this specific case) I suggest it would be a very long time indeed before any capital was returned to lenders given the scale of funding of such projects - and that's one uncertainty too many for me.

I will certainly be keeping a very keen eye on how current events unfold in the near future.

sg I think the main purpose of DD is to identify any glaring red flags. With the borrower, VR, etc. I don't think you can do anything granular unless you have personal expertise and even then it would be very difficult.

As an aside, my Lendy strategy has today taken a material turn. I've listed everything for sale. I've decided that I'm over-exposed to P2P and my Lendy loans are the first to go as I like them and the platform least, want one less platform to have to monitor, I was already 75% down on my Lendy peak, etc. Looking at the queues, I have a couple that will take longer to sell but I should be able to do the rest in the next few days. In fact much of it sold in the first 6 hours or so.

I'll probably mainly go back to lurking on this board now although if anything peaks my interest I'll pile in! And I'm keeping my Lendy position under review so I could be back if the right things happen.

GeorgeT - Please expand on 'holistic'. What do you consider as the whole to be considered, Lendy, P2P, Portfolio, All Assets. Personally I never know where to draw the line, for example I have money in REIT's, should they be considered in the same group as property loans on P2P, I can't decide. At the moment I have an amount of money in P2P and loans within that I consider separately from anything without, but I'm never sure if that's the right way to go about it and am always interested to hear opinions, particularly reasoned ones.

Diversification stops me kicking myself if my poor DD (I know nothing about property development) goes wrong. I don't think I will ever monitor the site or this forum well enough to post to the SM market before others flood it. I have 75 odd loans all at similar levels, so 2 month's interest will cover a complete default, which doesn't seem to happen with property anyway.

Advice here has kept me away from lemons, but I don't worry that I'll eventually be caught.

I've sampled 5 platforms now, and Lendy's seems the easiest to manage for a decent reward, as its simple to filter (thanks FilterLoans) for my diversification criteria. I'm a little puzzled about other's enthusiasm for MT and FS, as they seem harder work to me