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Post by Financial Thing on Apr 27, 2021 15:31:37 GMT
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Post by Financial Thing on Dec 17, 2020 15:47:38 GMT
For me, Loanpad has been the shining star in my somewhat muddy portfolio.
Octopus Choice has been solid.
If I had to redo my last 5 years and were starting again today, my 5 goods would be, Loanpad, Assetz, Lendinvest (not p2p), Crowd Property and Unbolted.
And, if i had extra funds, Blend Network would be the recipient.
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Post by Financial Thing on Dec 10, 2020 19:07:45 GMT
I had to count the stars to really understand the used words here
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Post by Financial Thing on Oct 14, 2020 13:07:35 GMT
I've visited Handf. They seemed very experienced to me, if they aren't, they were great actors. . I was little surprised at the high LTV of the mentioned loan however I thought there must be a good reason why. Thanks Loanpad for the prompt answer.
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Post by Financial Thing on Sept 24, 2020 15:41:38 GMT
I 100% agree with the post above. I couldn't care less about a % bump in interest rates on loans right now. The UK is facing another lockdown and SME's are in trouble. I want investors capital to be as protected as possible. What good is a 1% interest increase if you lose your capital?
We've had too many borrowers and p2p companies fail.
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Post by Financial Thing on Sept 24, 2020 14:37:11 GMT
Personally I think there are a few good p2p's left. The others will continue to thrive or die, filtered out by their own operations and the struggling economy. It was inevitable.
I've had successes and failures in p2p. I'm favoring Loanpad, Kuflink, Unbolted, Crowdproperty. I'm hopeful for Assetz but concerned how many SME's will suffer due to Covid. I'll give a nod towards Lendinvest, Proplend, Justus seems solid.
I also discovered a new non UK p2p option that seems to make sense. I'm investigating further.
Sitting in savings seems like a terrible option for us retirement seekers with 1% inflation and low interest rates hanging around for a while. Fine if you are financially well off and don't need growth on your cash but not for the rest of us.
I think a mix of index trackers and some equities for income is a solution.
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Post by Financial Thing on May 29, 2020 23:05:10 GMT
Choice is part of a much larger company, the Octopus Group which pre-Covid employed 800+ people in the health care, tech, energy, managed investment portfolios and real estate lending. I've visited the Octopus building and Choice offices offices and was very impressed by their operations. I'm not too concerned about OC despite the freeze.
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Post by Financial Thing on Apr 2, 2020 16:57:33 GMT
* Venting hat on *
I feel like investors' have really been let down by MT's loan due diligence here.
I understand about Covid and that valuations are subjective and the "valuer made a mistake" argument but where is the responsibility taken by MT?
£2m of investors money potentially unrecoverable and so far, £274,000 (34.8%) in "fees" taken.
These continued "we were only able to recover a small % of retrieved loan value and investors' will be taking the brunt of the capital losses" emails are irritating.
* Venting hat off *
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Post by Financial Thing on Feb 28, 2020 17:16:24 GMT
Financial thing is paid to promote platforms. Always better to do your own research than to listen to propaganda. I'm sure anyone with a nice office would get a positive review. Yes and if the p2p companies serve me a nice cuppa, they get extra points I've spent five years of my life investing, writing about and visiting the p2p companies. My goal has always been capital preservation and to share any information I have with my readers. From there they can make their own decisions. It takes time and money to invest and visit the companies and all the information I give is free of charge. I receive ad revenue and refer-a-friend income from some companies but am not paid to promote any of them via my reviews. Everything I write is from my own opinions and experiences.
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Loanpad (LP)
Loanpad
Feb 25, 2020 16:10:05 GMT
Nomad likes this
Post by Financial Thing on Feb 25, 2020 16:10:05 GMT
Loanpad's choice of a single quality lending source was a good move IMO. I visited Loanpad's current lending source (Handf) in Jan 2020. Handf has a good amount of skin in the game on each loan, (they lend out millions of their own cash), their small team is highly experienced, intelligent and they run a low cost operation. This is different to the other p2p's that have huge London offices with many mouths to feed. But most importantly, I felt Handf cared and take great responsibility in providing high quality loans to Loanpad to ensure loans are repaid and investors' money is as protected as possible. Wide diversification other failed p2p companies gave investors resulted in poor due diligence resulting in a capital losses. Kudos Loanpad. Don't change anything. With respect for the work you have put into your review business, you made a bad judgement call on the personalities and 'feeling' at Lendy. Your advice often is modelled on the 'I've met them and they are good people' approach. I'm not sure that I can trust your judgement of people, and therefore I feel concerned now, whenever I see one of your reviews and go through them picking out the bits that appear to be facts rather than impressions. One of the things we are all missing is being able to apply our intuition to the people/personalities running the platform - so a visit to an office could be of value, but it's not an easy one to write about. I like that you have stuck to the fact about the size of team and office; but you imply there are others who have overly-luxurious offices - it would be interesting to know which. I appreciate your feedback...you're correct, I made bad judgement calls on Collateral, Lendy, Funding Secure all of which I invested money through but none I visited (obviously a mistake on my part). These were companies I invested through very early on in my p2p lending journey when my trust levels were higher. As with life, I try to learn from past mistakes and grow from them. I certainly don't hide from them. I stand by what I said about Loanpad after meeting with Louis and Handf. Could I be wrong...of course. Just my opinion. People can lose money in p2p, just as people can lose money purchasing stocks or buying crypto. That's part of the investment risk. I do feel a duty to write about my learnings as I have access to p2p people in ways most p2p investors do not. From there, it's your decision what to do with this information.
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Loanpad (LP)
Loanpad
Feb 14, 2020 19:34:02 GMT
Post by Financial Thing on Feb 14, 2020 19:34:02 GMT
Loanpad - pleased to see the changes you've made today in the Live Data Feed summary display - particularly the acknowledgement that there are effectively really only 20 distinct loans on the platform (not the nearly forty previously reported) , and the inclusion of the ICF statistics. Thank you. Good news indeed. It does beg the question, how is diversification to be improved? Loanpad , could you please update on plans for improving diversification of loans and bringing in additional lending partners, something which has been alluded to but not materialised. Many thanks. Loanpad's choice of a single quality lending source was a good move IMO. I visited Loanpad's current lending source (Handf) in Jan 2020. Handf has a good amount of skin in the game on each loan, (they lend out millions of their own cash), their small team is highly experienced, intelligent and they run a low cost operation. This is different to the other p2p's that have huge London offices with many mouths to feed. But most importantly, I felt Handf cared and take great responsibility in providing high quality loans to Loanpad to ensure loans are repaid and investors' money is as protected as possible. Wide diversification other failed p2p companies gave investors resulted in poor due diligence resulting in a capital losses. Kudos Loanpad. Don't change anything.
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Post by Financial Thing on Nov 28, 2019 14:55:48 GMT
If LW lenders are being paid 6.5% max and borrowers are paying an avg. of 14% in 2019 (I presume some borrowers are paying much higher APR's and some lower), the spread indicates that the lender might be taking considerable risk for a 5% or 6.5% return. Some p2p companies, are working on very thin interest spread margins of about 2%. Thanks for the post. Just wanted to make a point regarding spread, as I've mentioned in another similar post elsewhere. The basic composition of a loan at an average APR of say 14% is something like this: Annualised lender return (net of losses) = 6.5% Annualised Shield contributions (default rate) = 4% (taken as a mix of upfront fee and interest spread) Acquisition fee (annualised equiv.) = 1% (payable to introducers where applicable etc) Lending Works margin (remainder) = 2.5% (taken as a mix of upfront fee and interest spread) Total = 14% With regards to the new stats page, it states "As we’ve grown, we’ve prudently expanded our risk appetite and average APR to meet demand from a wider pool of borrowers". I presume this means LW is lending to higher risk profile borrowers paying higher weighted APR %'s. LW used to advertise that borrowers were lower risk. The stats page shows a rise in the avg APR, lifetime default rate and reduction of the Shield cash balance. Why was the actual bad debt rate table removed in favor of an Expected annual loss rate? I think those actual bad debt numbers are important. Now the lender rate has dropped to 5.4% max, risk to reward seems to be widening.
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Post by Financial Thing on Nov 27, 2019 15:39:43 GMT
Some thoughts... Firstly, Lending Works seems to have very good borrower feedback on Trustpilot which is comforting presuming the reviews are authentic. P2p borrower screening seems to be a big issue, brought more to light thanks to the Lendy & FS debacles. One very smart p2p CEO and I had a discussion about how p2p companies are under immense pressure to find new loan borrowers to keep revenue flowing and how this is a problem. Some p2p companies have very high overheads (staff, London digs etc.) so one has to wonder how much bending of underwriting guidelines occurs in order to write new loans to generate revenue. We as investors put trust into the p2p companies ability to underwrite loans to worthy borrowers but we aren't privy to what goes on behind the p2p companies doors. I've used Lending Works for some time and I am concerned that the borrower weighted APR% has doubled from 2014 (7.7%) to 2019 (14.8%). I also know that APR%'s do not always correlate to risk but they do play a part. If LW lenders are being paid 6.5% max and borrowers are paying an avg. of 14% in 2019 (I presume some borrowers are paying much higher APR's and some lower), the spread indicates that the lender might be taking considerable risk for a 5% or 6.5% return. Some p2p companies, are working on very thin interest spread margins of about 2%. Why would good borrower feedback be comforting? They're going to give good feedback principally because they can easily extract cash from the lender, which isn't necessarily in our interests. Some Funding Secure borrowers were delighted on trustpilot. Share your concern about escalating borrower APR. Recent stats are somewhat alarming IMV, as highlighted a number of times (PF cash has gone down by 2/3 this year alone). LW have advised of an update on various things at the end of this month, and the next set of stats will be out tomorrow too. Suspect it might be worth reserving judgement until we see what these updates bring. For me it's a good thing because it appears that LW are taking good care of their customers who are half the lifeblood of their business. It goes without saying that the stats are important too.
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Post by Financial Thing on Nov 27, 2019 15:21:35 GMT
Some thoughts...
Firstly, Lending Works seems to have very good borrower feedback on Trustpilot which is comforting presuming the reviews are authentic.
P2p borrower screening seems to be a big issue, brought more to light thanks to the Lendy & FS debacles. One very smart p2p CEO and I had a discussion about how p2p companies are under immense pressure to find new loan borrowers to keep revenue flowing and how this is a problem. Some p2p companies have very high overheads (staff, London digs etc.) so one has to wonder how much bending of underwriting guidelines occurs in order to write new loans to generate revenue.
We as investors put trust into the p2p companies ability to underwrite loans to worthy borrowers but we aren't privy to what goes on behind the p2p companies doors.
I've used Lending Works for some time and I am concerned that the borrower weighted APR% has doubled from 2014 (7.7%) to 2019 (14.8%). I also know that APR%'s do not always correlate to risk but they do play a part.
Interestingly I downloaded the loan book which shows the Max Gross Rate as 6.5%.
If LW lenders are being paid 6.5% max and borrowers are paying an avg. of 14% in 2019 (I presume some borrowers are paying much higher APR's and some lower), the spread indicates that the lender might be taking considerable risk for a 5% or 6.5% return. Some p2p companies, are working on very thin interest spread margins of about 2%.
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Post by Financial Thing on Nov 1, 2019 14:33:42 GMT
For anyone that's interested in CrowdProperty, I recorded a three-part Q&A session with Michael Bristow. Part 1 is here
Part 2 is herePart 3 will be uploaded Monday.
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