2007 RateLadder Goal Review — Overall A-

As my final planned post of 2007 I will be reviewing my goals and giving a grade.

Here were my 2007 RateLadder Goals.

	Expectation	Goal	Stretch Goal	Actual
2007 Year Ending Account Value	$4,386.37	$5,062.84	$5,740.86	$11,519.59
Return on Investment (ROI)	10%	12%	14%	10.16%
New Reinvestment Loans	24	27	30	30+
Number of Defaults	2	0		4
Per Month New Money Added	$50	$100	$150	$582
New Money Source	100% Savings	75% Savings, 25% RateLadder.com	50% Savings, 50% RateLadder.com	50%+ RateLadder.com
Google PageRank	1	3	5	3
Average Unique Visitors Per Day	10	50	100	87.22

2007 Year Ending Account Value: A+ Strectch Goal Vastly Exceeded.

Many things happened over the course of a year that I hadn’t expected. In fact, if you had told me I don’t think I would have believed you. Even in my niche my advertising pricing power is high. And I was able to start LendingClub, Kiva, and Microplace investments.

Return on Investment (ROI): C Meet Expectation.

I know I didn’t have a clear understanding of lending accounting and I had a much lower default expectation when I made that ROI goal… The ROI I was referring to was my Quicken 1 year avg annual return percentage. Given my method for Prosper accounting in Quicken, this number has interest added at the end of the month in which it is generated and only defaults principal on debt sales and bankruptcy. Given my better understanding, next year’s goal will take an altered form.

New Reinvestment Loans: A Stretch Goal Exceeded.

This goal is slightly difficult to track and will be removed in next years goals… Needless to say with my larger than expected account value my principal plus interest repayments were able to generate more than an additional 30 loans.

Number of Defaults: F Expectation Not Meet.

To say that my understanding of the marketplace has increased is an understatement. Also with my larger account and it’s larger number of loans you would expect higher defaults. None the less, in the spirit in which this goal was made I failed.

Per Month New Money Added: A+ Stretch Goal Exceeded.

I have been able to vastly exceed my extremely modest revenue projections with my p2p websites.

New Money Source: A Stretch Goal Met.

While not all money added to my account was generated from my websites more than 50% was generated from my websites which was my stretch goal for 2007.

Google Page Rank: B Goal Met.

Google page rank is dead. None the less, I was able to achieve a page rank of 3 before Google stopped updating. I will choose a different goal for next year.

Average Unique Visitors Per Day: B+ Goal Met.

As of this morning I had 31,836 unique daily visitors for an average of 87.22.

Overall Score: A- Wow what a year.

Looking back on my year I have a great sense of accomplishment and pride. I have learned wordpress. I have written more than a post a day (my English teachers would never believe it). I have met new and interesting people. I have learned more than the basics of SEO. I have a much greater understanding of Prosper and P2P Lending. I can’t wait to see what 2008 has in store.

5 Comments | December 31, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Best of RateLadder 4th Quarter 2007

This is a time of year reflection and goal setting for the year to come. I think it has been a very interesting and prosperous year.

Here are some of my best and/or most popular posts from the 4th quarter of 2007…

October 2007:

Prosper Files S1 With SEC

Prosper Repurchases A Loan

MicroPlace, an Ebay Company Launches

RateLadder Reaches 10K Milestone

Quicken vs Prosper — ROI Accounting

Updated September Prosper Late Curves

0 Current Delinquencies Late Curves

November 2007:

Freakonomics at Prosper Days 2008

Portfolio Plans — The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Inquiries Are As Important as Credit Grade

RateLadder’s Desired Lending Club Lender Functionality

Zopa’s US Launch Imminent

NetBanker at Prosper Days 2008

General Opinion of New Prosper Forums

Lending Club Clarifies Referral Program at P2P No Bank Forum

Updated Vintage Curves November 1st 2007

December 2007:

Prosper Debt Sale In Progress

Lending Club Loan Volume Misquoted in National Newspaper

LendingClub Raising Rates 50 Basis Point

Prosper Vintage Curves From Private Data

Lend $5000 on Lending Club Get $250 or More

LendingClub Goes National — Lending Club Data

Prosper Interest Rates On the Rise

Prosper Debt Sale Percentages

Ayn Rand Indecisive Liberal, Prosper Blog, and Other Prosper Changes

Prosper Vintage Curves 12/1/2007

RateLadder Prosper IRR 12/1/2007 = 1.32%

No Comments | December 28, 2007 | Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Prosper Debt Sale In Progress

As I mentioned several days ago a debt sale is about to be completed.

I have had 3 loans sold so far (I will update this page if more are sold)…

B Credit @15.16% interest rate, non-homeowner, sold for 9.54% of principal (borrower had not made a single payment).
C Credit @ 25% interest rate, homeowner, sold for 12.74% of principal.
B Credit @ 14.5% interest rate, homeowner, sold for 12.49% of principal.

I also got this from LazyManAndMoney. It is a bit anecdotal, but it adds to the collective knowledge.

I’ve had about 12 maybe more. They’ve all been about $4 on a $43 remaining principle. Each one is nearly uniform in nature differing by maybe 10-12 cents in either direction.

Update: Prosper released the official debt sale results.

Wow! Texas loans were singled out.

Here are the details of the sale:
   • Eligible loans were more than 122 days past due as of December 4th, 2007, provided the loan was not part of any bankruptcy filing.
   • 701 loans were sold.
   • Price range: 2.8% - 14.5% (as % of principal).

Weighted Average Prices

Homeowners 12.5%

Non-homeowners

AA, A 9.6%

B, C, D 9.1%

E, HR 7.3%

NC 4.8%

Texas (all) 3.5%