Comments on: New Features make Lending on Prosper Better than Ever

By: Quotes

Quotes — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:45:25 +0000

Hey LM. Thanks for the heads up. I try to stick to AA and A grade borrowers. I was not aware of the AA fee reduction. Thanks.

“The trouble for most people is they don’t decide to get wealthy, they just dream about it.” –Michael Masterson

By: Matthew Paulson

Matthew Paulson — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:47:09 +0000

I scored an interview with Chris Neilsen from Prosper, I’m definitely going to ask some questions about the new portfolio plans, it’s an interesting concept, now if only they would do something meaningful with the money you get as payments, say put it in a money market account.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:25:40 +0000

Considering that I started with a strategy that had me down by 10% for 6 months, being up 4-5% cumulative now means that my current strategy is probably making 10%+, but I have no way to measure from the change. My strategy requires no work - most weeks I don't even log into my Prosper.com account. See this post for that strategy.

By: The Div Guy

The Div Guy — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:51:27 +0000

LM,

Do I read you right that you are making 4-5% on your Prosper loans? If that is the case, it doesn’t seem worthwhile from a risk return standpoint. It also seem like a lot of work.

By: Argonautica

Argonautica — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:32:34 +0000

Thanks for the heads-up, LM. I had been letting Prosper coast for a bit after making some of the same mistakes you described and hadn’t heard about the new portfolio manager. I gave it a try- I figure it can’t do any worse than the poor picks I made after spending an inordinate amount of time reading loans.

BTW- anyone else having trouble posting comments here in Firefox? Just wondering what I’m doing wrong.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 21:13:08 +0000

Some people do pay the 30% back. If you have 50 loans of E grade credit at 30% and 10 default, you’ll do worse than if you had 50 loans of E grade credit at 36% and 10 default.

By: Pinyo

Pinyo — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 20:40:20 +0000

I don’t see how increasing the cap help anyone. If they can’t pay back at 30%, they sure can’t pay back at 36% now.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:32:00 +0000

Mike: I realize that it’s not a positive. I also realize that several people are quite unhappy and leaving Prosper because of it. I read the forums. I don’t think the vast majority of lenders are going back and doing analysis on loans (that they had nothing to do with) that had gone belly up. Plus I have all the analysis I care about with that with the bidding guidelines. To some this is critical, but I still feel it’s a minority and not worth mentioning here.

By: living off dividends

living off dividends — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:17:28 +0000

don’t forget to read my post about getting advertisement dollars from Prosper.
an extra $xx/mo isn’t too bad for less than 15 mins of work!

http://www.livingoffdividends.com/2007/10/25/get-advertising-revenue-from-prosper/

also check out the comments for tips on lending criteria.

[Editor: I took out the money per month listed here.]

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:06:01 +0000

Lazy Man –

Hiding the expired listings is viewed as very negative for lenders. Several are quite pissed about it, actually. Lots of people have been attempting to do deep analysis on loans that have gone belly up. When you’re not allowed to compare details on loans that have failed versus those that haven’t, it makes it very difficult to adjust your lending to actually make money.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 18:04:50 +0000

You could click on my Prosper.com category tag on the left and read most of them. Unfortunately, I started off taking on a bunch of sub-prime loans. I’ve since gotten better and brought it up to around 4-5%. If you consider that’s from being in the hole, I think it’s done fairly well.

By: Danny Tsang

Danny Tsang — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:42:51 +0000

I might have to give in and give prosper a try. I’ve been sitting on it for so long. Did you ever write a post about how your loans are doing and what your return is so far? thanks

By: RateLadder

RateLadder — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:41:01 +0000

I think dave is referring to my minor league outfield wall of a blog. Your site is better than ever in terms of deisgn and ad integration.

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:33:20 +0000

I saw the ability of second loans to be more of an impact for the borrower. As for the expired listings being hidden, I think the significance of that might have gone over my head. I barely have enough time to look over my own loans and figure out what’s working and what’s not. I definitely don’t have time to go back and look at expired listings hidden, so this one doesn’t impact me (and I’m guessing quite a few people).

Lastly, I also didn’t mention the Facebook application or the authenticated API (as RateLadder adds here). These may be important to some people, especially the Facebook app, but I wanted to limit the confusion and focus on the big impact items as I saw them.

By: Prosper loan stats

Prosper loan stats — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:09:27 +0000

You listed only the positive changes, not the controversial ones (second loans) or negative ones (expired listings hidden)

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:58:03 +0000

Dave, your wish is my command. Advertisers, if you are interested, please contact me.

On a more serious note, I work hard to make sure that it’s easy to read the content. If you focus your eyes on the middle of the screen there’s only one AdSense block near the content. Also, subscribing to the RSS feed is a great way to avoid most of the ads.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:45:22 +0000

Can you put any more ads on your site? I can’t tell what is info and what isn’t

By: RateLadder

RateLadder — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:42:04 +0000

Thanks for the mention… As a 3rd party tool developer I am most excited about the authenticated API.

However I agree… I would bid (perferrably at the last second) on any listing with a 12+% return.