It’s been a while since I went through the trouble to see how my Prosper portfolio is doing, so here it is.

I use Excel’s XIRR function and count all loans 1 month late or more as having $0 loan value, 17 loans.

XIRR (ROI) = 8.06%

Average Loan Age = 511 days

I was a little surprised that the ROI went up since the last time I calculated it. I’ve had a bunch of loans slip into the death zone

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Continue reading → Sept. Performance Update – LC’s Prosper ROI

I just went through my account details, and using Excel’s xirr function determined that my Prosper Lending ROI stands at 7.88% at the moment.

I was a little surprised at the result, considering I’ve picked up more late borrowers since I last reported. Fortunately the ROI still manages to hover between 7.5% - 8.0%. It is also hovering between the two ROI estimates given by Eric and Lendingstats.

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Continue reading → June 2008 - LC’s Lending Performance

If you follow Prosper stuff, you should have already heard by now that May 08 became Prosper’s largest month for loan originations. Over $9.5 million in loans originated last month, besting April 07, which was the previous high.

It took Prosper over a year to set a new originations record. Not exactly stellar (nor consistent) growth, but there’s more going on in the background. Let’s take a look

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Continue reading → Prosper Set Some Records in May 08

*sigh*

Another loan tagged with a bankruptcy in my Prosper loan portfolio.

Just turned less than 15 days late too. 18 on-time payments.

What is it with some folks? Oh, right. Nevermind…

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Continue reading → Another Prosper Loan Bankruptcy

To my surprise I noticed a second small collections payment from a 3 month late borrower within the month. This loan is two years old.

It looks like Prosper’s Collection Agency Amsher may have worked out some sort of payment plan with the borrower, about 1/4 of the monthly payment amount every two weeks. It won’t bring the loan current, but it will keep putting my money back in my pocket.

I

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Continue reading → Prosper Collection Agency Amsher Workin’ It

I had my fingers crossed. I saw a dagger on a 6 month late Prosper.com loan, meaning a payment (a rather large one) was attempted. It had a regular payment number (did not start with “OP”), so I could only assume this payment was initiated by the borrower.

This borrower has had an interesting history. First becoming 3 months late, and then catching up late last summer. Then only to go late again

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Continue reading → Hopes Crushed on 6 Month Late Loan

To my utmost surprise, my only “Late” loan made a payment (wahoo!), so at the moment I have no “Lates”. Of course there are plenty of loans one month late or worse, but without any “Late” loan statuses, I know that at least for 15 or so days there won’t be any more loans falling off the cliff into Collection Agency territory.

I went through and recalculated my Prosper ROI using Excel’s XIRR

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Continue reading → Latest ROI Results

Quick Chimp Tip for the New Lender # 11
(part 13 of my Prosper Lending Presentation)

Instead of getting upset over late loans, the best thing you can do is analyze the late loan and learn how to avoid similar loans in the future.

Sure, you can always go to Eric’s cool website to look up late loans and learn from those, but when you’re on a loan that goes late and have real money at stake, the

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Continue reading → Learn From Your Mistakes

Quick Chimp Tip for the New Lender # 10
(part 12 of my Prosper Lending Presentation)

Instead of getting upset over late loans, just sit back, take a deep breath, and relax.
Remember, there isn’t anything you can do about it anyway. Don’t let a late loan spoil your day…

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Continue reading → Instead, Take a Deep Breath

Quick Chimp Tip for the New Lender # 9
(part 11 of my Prosper Lending Presentation)

When your loans start going late, don’t get mad. There’s really not much you can do about it anyway.

You could yell and scream like the loan chimp you are, but that doesn’t result in anything but a broken monitor and high blood pressure…

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Continue reading → Don’t get Mad

Quick Chimp Tip for the New Lender # 8
(part 10 of my Prosper Lending Presentation)

So you’re relatively new to Prosper and have been happily bidding away. You’ve been careful about the loans you’ve selected, and you’re quietly cheering on each one of your borrowers; like that nice family with the cute baby, the pretty girl that is about to graduate from college, and that guy that wants to

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Continue reading → Loans Really do go Late

(part 2 of my Prosper Lending Presentation)

Joined February 2006$27k Invested373 Total Loans
95 Paid Loans250 Current Loans
6 less than one month late22 one month late or worse

Here is a brief snapshot of my Prosper lending portfolio (these are the most recent figures).
When I first put this together, the item that stood out the most to me was the number of Paid loans in my portfolio. At the

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Continue reading → Inside LC’s Prosper Portfolio

Collections

I know it’s getting well past Prosper Days 2008, so I should really finish this up. One of the last topics I wanted to at least touch on briefly was the collections arena, one which we’ve already heard quite a good deal about already.

Doug Fuller (DoFu) appears to be committed to collecting on late debt however possible - taking in any form of payment, changing the dates of late

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Continue reading → Prosper Days 2008 Recap - Part 8

On Viability

Another thing that came out at Prosper Days 2008 was some more insight on the pace of growth on Prosper and the burn rate of it’s Venture Capital.

The viability of Prosper should be a huge concern for Prosper lenders. If Prosper goes out of business one day, someone needs to service our loans – that is, receive payments, distribute them to the multiple lenders on each loan, collect

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Continue reading → Prosper Days 2008 Recap - Part 7

I spent some time the other day evaluating my Prosper portfolio. Part of the reason for doing this was to see where I’ve been and to help determine where I’ll go in the marketplace.

I took a different approach this time, and looked at originations by month:

I also broke the months into quarters and added a dollar amount column:

Observation 1: Only a few bad decisions will hurt a lot.

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Continue reading → Month by Month Evaluation

Last week* I had a loan hit “late < 15 days” status on the day it was due, meaning no payment was attempted. It also had a “bankruptcy” tag on it, which of course is always bad news.

The bummer of it all is that this borrower has successfully made 16 payments. Yeah, 2 payments were made at the 15 day late mark, but they were still made. 16 freakin’ payments!

Almost halfway into the life of

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Continue reading → 16 Payments - Then Bankruptcy

Thanks to mike at ProsperousLand for pointing out that Prosper.com ‘s bidding guidance was recently updated. Unfortunately, Prosper does not display any archive of old bidding guidance segments or Portfolio Plan criteria. Fortunately for me, I’ve been keeping copies…
I won’t go into every detail that was changed, but curiosity got the best of me and I just wanted to know,

Why did the credit

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Continue reading → Things Fall Apart

I calculated my Prosper.com portfolio ROI using the XIRR excel function again last night and the downward spiral continues.

Counting all loans 1 month late or more as have $0 value, my ROI is:

7.68% - ugh *

Late loans just continue to pile up. Fortunately I have no “Late” status loans, but at the moment have 5 <15 day lates. One of those went late on the due date, which is never a good sign.

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Continue reading → The Downward Spiral

4 of my 9 Prosper.com loans over 4 months late finally defaulted over the Christmas holiday week.

What a gift. It wasn’t unexpected because these loans have been sitting in the 4+ month late status for quite some time (virtually uncollectible), but it still feels like a kick in the pants.

D non-Homeowner
Principal balance before sale: $48.09
Proceeds from sale and forfeited group rewards: $1.72

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Continue reading → My Second Christmas Gift on Prosper.com - DEFAULTS

In my last post, I detailed the good fortune I received over the Christmas holiday on my less than 1 month late loans.

Well, it turns out that the results weren’t so rosy after I checked my Prosper.com account today.

2 of the loans I thought I received payments for showed up on my “late” loan list (between 15 and 30 days late). It turns out that these 2 loans had the payments reversed.

What

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Continue reading → Christmas Present Correction

I received two Christmas gifts on Prosper.com this week.

This first gift was unexpected. Going into the Christmas holiday week, I had 8 less than 15 day late loans and 1 “late” loan. As of Christmas Eve (Monday), all but one showed daggers.

Late loans for me seem to come in bunches. The last bunch did not treat me well, as shown by my 5 one month late loans (grrr), so I wasn’t sure what to

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Continue reading → Did My Late Prosper.com Loans Pay Over Christmas?

(sung to the music of “Away in a Manger”)

I Lent to a Stranger
- a Lender carol -

I lent to a stranger
Believed what he said
I read the loan title,
“In over my Head”

If stars would align
This is what they’d say
“You’d need a miracle
To get him to pay.”

The rabble are rousing
With this point to make
The lenders are lending
Some borr’wers just take

I love thee, dear platform,
Look down from

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Continue reading → I Lent to a Stranger

I never thought Hollywood’s Writers’ Strike would effect me. Sure there’s less on tv these days, but that doesn’t bother me (although I did enjoy Jay Leno’s “Headlines” feature).

It turns out one of my borrowers was affected by this. From his Prosper profile:

I’m a Project Coordintaor at NBC-Universal, in Universal City, CA.

He’s not a writer, but I have to assume that he was laid-off or

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Continue reading → Writers’ Strike Effects

Thanks to the continued effort of Fred93 at prospers.org (link to thread - registration and verification may be required), we can see that so far Prosper loans appear to happen over time. Right from the beginning and onward.

There is no “green zone” when it comes to Prosper loans. Just because your borrower has successfully made 6 payments doesn’t make them any safer than if they had made 12.

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Continue reading → When do Prosper Loans Go Late?

We all know that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Yet it can be easy to blindly accept an offer for a credit card promoting a zero percent interest rate for an introductory period.
These 0% interest rate cards tend to have their “advantages” prominently displayed on the front [...]

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Continue reading → What 0% Really Costs You