The process of previewing my taxes reminded me to check my Prosper account to download all my statements for 2009. I first heard about Prosper back in 2006 and was quite excited about it. Here was an investment option where we could theoretically cut the financial industry out of their share. If junk bonds were returning 10%, lending directly to people might give you 15%! And on the flip side, these people who were paying 40% to payday operations now had a chance to climb out of their debts at 15%. (Or so I thought...)
For the first 2 months after signing up for Prosper, I read up on lending strategies, reviewed loan requests and made bids non-stop. The auction-like mechanism was very addicting -- getting in on a desirable loan was much like sniping an item at the last minute off eBay. There also that extra thrill being able to tell people "oh yeah, I lend money to total strangers over the internet" -- everybody always had a shocked look on their faces.
But after 2 months of intense effort, I realized I had only loaned out $1000. By comparison, I could click on Vanguard's website and put almost any amount in their corporate bond fund in 15 seconds. So I decided to suspend my lending activities and see how the portfolio would perform. (I did add 2 more social loans later as an exception.)
During the first 6 months, things looked ok. People were paying interest on my loans although there was an uneasy pattern of some loans going late and then catching up later. Then a few loans would miss a few months of payments and there would be absolutely no news. After more than a year, I finally saw one of my past due loans sold off for pennies to a debt collector. It was a big loss but at least I could finally claim a capital loss on taxes and the borrower would suffer some consequence for defaulting. The next loans though started getting charged off with no sale. After reading up on Prosper gossip, I find out Prosper loans were too weird even for debt collectors to buy. Prosper then made an attempt to sue defaulted borrowers but failed miserably.
At that point, I gave up on Prosper and put in automatic orders to take money out on a regular basis until all loans either were paid off or charged off. With only 1 loan still in action, here is how my portfolio looks:
50.00 25,000 14.00% AA Charge-Off
59.22 25,000 13.00% A Paid
50.00 15,000 12.50% A Charge-Off
60.00 25,000 13.50% A Charge-Off
50.00 5,000 14.00% B Paid
50.00 5,000 14.00% B Paid
50.00 2,700 12.50% B Paid
50.00 7,600 16.50% C Paid
50.00 15,000 17.00% C Charge-Off
50.00 10,000 17.25% C Charge-Off
50.00 8,500 16.94% D Paid
55.00 1,500 20.00% D Paid
50.00 12,000 28.00% D Charge-Off
50.00 7,700 23.50% D Paid
50.00 4,750 19.00% D Charge-Off
50.00 8,000 28.00% D Paid
120.83 1,000 7.00% HR* Current
70.00 1,000 5.00% HR* Paid
* Social loans
18 loans total, 7 defaulted -- 38% rate. Without the social loans, the default rate would have been 44%. These numbers are a far cry from the advertised 5% default rates in the media hype. Now some of the defaulted loans did pay interest for a while so they weren't a total loss -- only the AA 25K 14% loan stopped paying almost immediately. But when viewed over time, here is how my Prosper performance looked:
With a tiny overall loss, I got off easy compared to some of the big lenders (see:
Pensioner 55%,
carrey79 46%). It is sad this promising idea was torpedoed by such bad execution at Prosper (lack of collections). Do I have any desire to give it a try again? Well once in a while, I might think "hmmm, if I had only picked higher quality loans". Then I look at
Fred93's stats and read
his blog -- uhh, never mind.
(Filed in investing)
Earlier this year, I wrote about the horrible investment of lending money to complete strangers over the internet. I had transferred every cent remaining out of Prosper a few months ago and figuring there was little chance of Prosper's collection... Read More
Prosper Post-Mortem
Posted by Mossy
January 27, 2010 9:45 PM
For the first 2 months after signing up for Prosper, I read up on lending strategies, reviewed loan requests and made bids non-stop. The auction-like mechanism was very addicting -- getting in on a desirable loan was much like sniping an item at the last minute off eBay. There also that extra thrill being able to tell people "oh yeah, I lend money to total strangers over the internet" -- everybody always had a shocked look on their faces.
But after 2 months of intense effort, I realized I had only loaned out $1000. By comparison, I could click on Vanguard's website and put almost any amount in their corporate bond fund in 15 seconds. So I decided to suspend my lending activities and see how the portfolio would perform. (I did add 2 more social loans later as an exception.)
During the first 6 months, things looked ok. People were paying interest on my loans although there was an uneasy pattern of some loans going late and then catching up later. Then a few loans would miss a few months of payments and there would be absolutely no news. After more than a year, I finally saw one of my past due loans sold off for pennies to a debt collector. It was a big loss but at least I could finally claim a capital loss on taxes and the borrower would suffer some consequence for defaulting. The next loans though started getting charged off with no sale. After reading up on Prosper gossip, I find out Prosper loans were too weird even for debt collectors to buy. Prosper then made an attempt to sue defaulted borrowers but failed miserably.
At that point, I gave up on Prosper and put in automatic orders to take money out on a regular basis until all loans either were paid off or charged off. With only 1 loan still in action, here is how my portfolio looks:
18 loans total, 7 defaulted -- 38% rate. Without the social loans, the default rate would have been 44%. These numbers are a far cry from the advertised 5% default rates in the media hype. Now some of the defaulted loans did pay interest for a while so they weren't a total loss -- only the AA 25K 14% loan stopped paying almost immediately. But when viewed over time, here is how my Prosper performance looked:
With a tiny overall loss, I got off easy compared to some of the big lenders (see: Pensioner 55%, carrey79 46%). It is sad this promising idea was torpedoed by such bad execution at Prosper (lack of collections). Do I have any desire to give it a try again? Well once in a while, I might think "hmmm, if I had only picked higher quality loans". Then I look at Fred93's stats and read his blog -- uhh, never mind.
(Filed in investing)
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Earlier this year, I wrote about the horrible investment of lending money to complete strangers over the internet. I had transferred every cent remaining out of Prosper a few months ago and figuring there was little chance of Prosper's collection... Read More
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