carolus
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Post by carolus on Nov 13, 2017 14:19:14 GMT
I've been very fortunate in my efforts to sell out. I had just under £5,700 invested, mostly at £50 or £100 per property, and I'm now down to £231 invested. I've only lost £37-odds on sales so far but rents received more than make up for that so I'm not out pocket. My last 4 properties are stuck in the SM but I'm happy to be nearly rid of this unsuccesful venture. The returns have been much less than PM said that they expected them to be and "first month rent-free" periods, expenses that investors shouldn't be paying and long tenant-free periods or rents not paid have made this a very disappointing platform. However, I gave it a go and I've come out the other end quite unscathed, so thank goodness for that. It could have been a lot worse. Good luck to everybody else on here that's trying to escape. Yes, this is pretty much the situation I'm in, although my max investment was about 2.5k. Now selling out fairly readily for generally 10/20p loss per share, but all covered by my rental income. Agreed on your comments about the platform. I also found the quality of information about properties and the case for investment to be very poorly researched/written. This was something I spotted with the original descriptiom for the cambridgeshire property. This was originally marketed as if it was in Cambridgre, when in reality it was 25(?) miles away and most of the reasons given for investment clearly didn't apply. They've since updated the listing (and removed the links to the daily mail as a source!). Since I only spotted this as I know the area, it made me very concerned about the info on other listings that I might not have noticed.
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carolus
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Property Moose
Selling out
Nov 13, 2017 9:08:38 GMT
via mobile
Post by carolus on Nov 13, 2017 9:08:38 GMT
It’s not that the properties are any worse than the newer ones. It’s just less liquid because of the higher price per share. I think PM should switch all the older ones to 10/share. Yep, didn't mean to suggest the properties are wrose, but I can imagine the appetite for £500 shares on a platform with these problems isn't great. I've wondered myself why the don't simply split each of those shares into 50. I can only assume it's one of so many baffling decisioms on the platform. My guess is that there are administrative costs involved that they dom't want to deal with and it's easier for them to just ignore it for a couple of years and roll over into new spvs on renewal.
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carolus
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Property Moose
Selling out
Nov 13, 2017 0:53:13 GMT
via mobile
Post by carolus on Nov 13, 2017 0:53:13 GMT
I think that sort of really steep discounting would see you sell out pretty quickly. I've been slowly selling out without needing anything like that sort of discount, now <50% of my peak after I made the deccision a month and a half or so ago (and that with basically listing things piecemeal). Honestly, unless you bought at a huge premium, I'd be tempted to start buying back in if you were offering 20% discounts! Apart from SPV81 all my properties are old style £500/share. Do you think that will matter? Ahhh, sorry, yes I joined after the switch to £10 shares, and don't have any of the old style. Unfortunately I forgot when I made my previous post that that might be an issue. I don't really have as much understanding of how well the sm functions for those ones, but looking at it, a 15-20% discount still seems pretty generous on a lot of them.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Nov 12, 2017 22:01:14 GMT
I have been considering selling everything at a 20% discount to my buy in but can’t face the pain of even that failing. Hopefully 2-3 years should see me free (at a loss) I think that sort of really steep discounting would see you sell out pretty quickly. I've been slowly selling out without needing anything like that sort of discount, now <50% of my peak after I made the deccision a month and a half or so ago (and that with basically listing things piecemeal). Honestly, unless you bought at a huge premium, I'd be tempted to start buying back in if you were offering 20% discounts!
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carolus
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Likes: 191
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Property Moose
Spv 81
Nov 10, 2017 15:43:58 GMT
Post by carolus on Nov 10, 2017 15:43:58 GMT
They said they had "proof of payment" - turned out that that was not the case - only options I can see are either they were flippant with how they described it or that proof was in some way fake - can anyone add another suggestion that doesn't put one or other party in a bad light? I genuinely would like another option. I don't really see how - they are now pretty clearly saying they haven't received the money, and I think, that the management company hasn't sent it. Equally, they clearly previously described it as a "proof of payment" which, by any reasonable metric, should clearly demonstrate that the funds have been sent, not just that they will be. The change in wording of what exactly it was proof of is IMO evidence that supports this. I'm willing to believe that this wasn't done deliberately by PM (and I think they are genuinely concerned about the situation), but I think it's symptomatic of a lack of professionalism and care in how they run things, and especially how they communicate (or don't) with investors. There seem to be a worrying number of cases where mistakes are made and only picked up on or made public because investors point them out. EDIT to add: I was initially going to suggest that they might have received proof the payment was going into the management company's payment run but that run hasn't yet happened, but on reflection I think that's still a misleading communication from PM if that's the case.
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carolus
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Posts: 204
Likes: 191
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Property Moose
Spv 81
Nov 10, 2017 12:05:00 GMT
Post by carolus on Nov 10, 2017 12:05:00 GMT
I've just had an email update further to my lc a couple of days ago. They apologised for telling me they had the funds (they don't), and I notice that the email described "confirmation that the payment was being made", which strikes me as not quite the same as "confirmation of payment". I wasn't doubting you (not sure if i came across that I was). My reference was to the PM updates, e.g. "proof of payment" - either they were flippant with the term or the mind boggles! Oh, no don't worry, that's not how I took your post! I was agreeing with you, as I think the phrasing I quoted suggests they were previously being rather loose with their phrasing wrt "proof of payment"!
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carolus
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Property Moose
Spv 81
Nov 10, 2017 10:44:27 GMT
Post by carolus on Nov 10, 2017 10:44:27 GMT
Update on site - still no money, no payout this week! They sound frustrated - I am bemused. Still the when due question & also now a question of what happened with the proof of payment - was that real? If I was asked, I'd vote to get lawyers involved. I've just had an email update further to my lc a couple of days ago. They apologised for telling me they had the funds (they don't), and I notice that the email described "confirmation that the payment was being made", which strikes me as not quite the same as "confirmation of payment".
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carolus
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Property Moose
Spv 81
Nov 8, 2017 23:08:16 GMT
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Post by carolus on Nov 8, 2017 23:08:16 GMT
Live chat say that they've got the funds, they just haven't cleared yet. I would have hoped that they might have factored that into their payment timescales, but it seems not.
I'm now midway through a sellout as, although I like the idea, I don't think it's competently run enough. If I wasn't, I'd be adding this to my list.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Nov 2, 2017 22:48:34 GMT
Hi all <snip> we included the loan note to appeal to a different type of investor on the site who does want fixed rate, lower risk investments. To get a 9% p.a. return on a sub 60% LTV first charge loan is something that, we think, is pretty unique. <snip> Kind regards Andrew Investor vote - PMF SPV75 Loan As someone attracted to the fixed rate lower risk I do not feel inclined to vote on converting my loan to SPV75 to equity with an unknown return and term. However, clearly all of the lenders holding the 25% equity will vote to change from buy to sell to buy to let, so unless every single one of the lenders holding the 75% loan notes votes with me to auction the property, my vote will be overridden. The change will take place unless 75% of shareholders (across debt and equity) vote to put the property in an auction.
Stacked deck. Well, you may be better off than you think. I'm in the equity part of this and have received no update and no notification of any vote (including on the platform). EDIT: Just realised I misunderstood the terms you quote - since it's 25% of all shareholders, I imagine even the chances of that many voting for *anything* are pretty slim.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Nov 2, 2017 12:39:10 GMT
Been on chat - property management team looking into it - no information as yet! EDIT: 5 hours after raising, still no info - I don't know about anyone else, but my pitchfork is out & sharpened - I won't accept the ramshackle service any more! Any news? I would have hoped you'd have an answer by now. SPV81 is their biggest listing; you'd think it not paying out would be quite a large priority to sort out... There's now an update on the platform (why they can't provide email notifications when an update is posted, I don't know). They're expecting the money to come this week...
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Oct 27, 2017 11:19:01 GMT
I notice there's still big chunks being taken, with about £30k gone from the queue since last night.
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carolus
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Property Moose
SPV24
Sept 22, 2017 17:17:40 GMT
via mobile
Post by carolus on Sept 22, 2017 17:17:40 GMT
25% loss including rental dividends paid out That's appalling. And I see their "projected value" is still £579. This is just increasing my feeling that it might be time to start pulling out of this experiment.
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carolus
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Property Moose
SPV24
Sept 22, 2017 14:52:08 GMT
Post by carolus on Sept 22, 2017 14:52:08 GMT
I'm not in this one, so can't see the update. Am I right in assuming from your post that the relisting will be at a substantial loss to current investors?
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Sept 21, 2017 10:44:47 GMT
Agreed - I think the fact that there hasn't been a genuine new property for months is rather telling. My feeling is that they perhaps overreached with some of the larger property deals and don't have the investor supply to make up for it. This is surely not helped by the fact that information and updates about properties is still pretty unclear and infrequent, the values etc of these relaunches don't seem at all transparent (has anyone made money from them?) and that all the buy to sell properties *still* haven't sold.
Even more agreed on your final point - it doesn't seem obvious to me that PM's incentives are really aligned with ours. As long as they keep hold of the properties, they get a constant stream of rental income, seemingly unaffected by costs etc which as far as I'm aware come out of our share, sowhy wouldn't they keep them? And then even if it does come to sale there's I can't see a clear reason from their point of view to ensure that there's profit for shareholders.
All this combined with seemingly wildly optimistic yield estimates and a marked decrease in the speed and clarity of responses from the help team is putting me off the platform more each day. Haven't been increasing my contribution for a while, but now considering selling off more of my holdings.
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carolus
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Post by carolus on Sept 20, 2017 16:11:27 GMT
But why have they paid some cash ? did the borrower find some cash ? oh. and the "updates" tab is missing on defaulted loans... not helpful. I think the updates tab is only available on loans that have had an update, which the new Birkenhead ones haven't. With regards to the cash payment, are you thinking of the Supercar loans? I haven't seen anything suggesting there's been a payment made on the Birkenhead loans.
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