Entries Tagged 'Listing Review' ↓
June 18th, 2008 — Groups, Listing Review, Prosper.com
My Prosper Group is proud to present our 3rd listing (2nd endorsed listing)… This listing is attempting to put the social in social capital.
The Penny Saved has been a known blogroll buddy of RateLadder for sometime. He asked me about this loan strategy about 2 months ago. This is a calculated decision on his part.
He is a computer programmer, owns a rental property, and independently runs the personal finance blog The Penney Saved.
The loan will be used to raise his credit score so that he and his fiance can build a house… Reducing his revolving credit card debt by transferring the revolving debt to an installment loan will improve his credit score. Specifically, it will reduce his high revolving debt balance percentage (79% in the Prosper listing.)
His listing does a great job of laying out the financial reasoning behind the loan…
Unfortunately for him his inquires in the last 6 months are 3. This places him in an very unfavorable loan slice… This does not affect my belief that The Penny Saved will repay this debt.
I will be bid $105.66 @ 1% (all available cash at the moment… I will add another bid at the end of the listing with all additional funds available at the time.)
Here is what prosper says about that slice…
Minimum bid rate (chosen by borrower): 16.00%
Estimated loss1: -16.49%
Adjustment2: -1.26%
Servicing fee: -1.00%
Estimated return3: -2.75%
Here is the listing.
$25 Bonus For New Lenders
How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other
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May 29th, 2008 — Listing Review, Prosper.com, Strategy
I have had several bloggers ask for advice on their listings or potential listings… One of them even joined my group and successfully received a $25K loan at an interest rate he was happy with…
As a blogger the reputation of your blog has meaning for you both in terms of your persona, but also in real financial terms… I have said privately, that I would lend to any blogger of 1 year duration or longer that placed their blog reputation on the line in the listing…
My offer to any blogger that has asked has been the same… Write a listing and mention your blog and url and I will endorse and bid on your listing and offer all the tips and assistance I know how to provide in order to get your loan funded and the rate as low as possible…
While I am still making that offer to any blogger, I thought I would share my tips for creating the best possible listing that anyone can use on prosper to get a loan.
- There are some credit statistics that are factual and out of your control (current inquires, current delinquencies, etc.). These are simple related to your circumstance and are difficult to adjust for your benefit by definition… There are others that you can control namely loan amount and the related DTI. If at all possible with your statistics that are our of your control, adjust your loan amount and there by your DTI to conform to a portfolio plan slice. These slices are updating frequently and they can be a moving target (ask deep market… his listing went live at 3 in the afternoon and the slices were adjust that evening.) Why? because the default portfolio plans have a lot of purchasing power… (My own listing might have gotten as much as $12K+ in portfolio plan bids in 4 days.)
- End your listing around 5pm est… For whatever reason that seems to be the time when more bids are placed. This leads me to believe this is a time of peak lender activity.
- End you listing on Thursday (assuming normal weekend and not a holiday)… This may no longer hold the same power as it once did (due to the $50 instant transfer for Facebook users), but the theory goes… Any lender transfer of money occurring between 11:01am est Friday and 11:00am Monday will result in the money being available for bidding on Thursday due to the time it takes for the transactions to clear the bank… Not everyone is a facebook user or has the Prosper facebook application installed and therefore I would still use this tip.
- Tell you story. Be truthful and honest and put as much detail into the story as you feel comfortable with… An expenses breakdown and a list of income amount and sources might help with a lower interest rate. But only provide what you are comfortable sharing. Your listing should make sense financially, else why are you getting the loan?
- Use a relevant picture… Do not you use a picture of someone else’s house or someone else’s blond girlfriend (hat tip to Freakonomics who says that young blond women out sell all other demographics in America).
- Choose the right starting interest rate… Prosper now provides interest rate guidance. Use the rate with the best chance of funding. You cannot get a loan if you listing does not reach 100% funded… The listing will only begin to be bid lower after it reaches 100% funded.
- Get endorsements from friends and get bids from friends who have endorsed your listing. I had 14+ endorsements (maybe a bit of overkill) and 11 bids from Prosper friends. I also have a number of bids from friends that are not confirmed Friends on Prosper. Try to get at least 3 friends to endorse and bid on your listing.
- Answer questions. If a lender takes an interest in your listing enough to ask a question, they deserve an answer. I answered all the questions asked. Even the question that involved details of my financial life that I am not comfortable sharing. I intentionally left out an income and budget breakdown from my listing. I do not recommend this if you are trying for your lowest possible interest rate. But I simply did not feel comfortable sharing that information (perhaps to my interest rate detriment). But even then I answer the question politely decline to answer and stating my reasons.
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May 2nd, 2008 — Groups, Listing Review, Prosper.com, Strategy, Tools
Any regular reader will know that last week I brought my first group listing to the marketplace. (As an aside, a group leader is no longer paid for successful listings and the haven’t been since September 13, 2007: Email To Group Leaders After Recent Changes. I think this was a good change and said so at the time and continue to say so now.)
While I certainly helped to the best of my ability and resources, the borrower did an excellent job of leveraging his social capital…
What social capital?
- He made it know that he had a job that supplemented his income. For him that amounted to as much as an extra $900 a month. By putting his blog on the listing he was not only putting his anonymous credit information and verifiable income on display, but leveraging his online assets. By adding the reputation of his blog to the listing, I think he added to the quality of listing immeasurably. Any blogger with any significant track record that puts their blog reputation at risk is serious about the reasons behind the loan and paying off the loan. (His blog is Deep Market.)
- He leveraged his interactions with me — a long time lender and p2p blogger. By joining my group and becoming Prosper friends and accepting my endorsement on his listing he was able leverage his interactions with me (email and blog comments for around a year) into additional social capital: my endorsement.
- Additionally, he used his blog to advertise his listing: Prosper Loan Listing Review. By offering links and reviews in exchange for bids and reviews he was offering a non monetary but valuable asset in exchange for buzz and bids.
What was the net result? A $25,000 loan at an interest rate he is very happy with 18.5%… His loan was bid down almost 7% from his starting point of 25.45%.
Deep Market, Congratulations and good luck… please keep us up to date with your progress.
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April 24th, 2008 — Listing Review
My Prosper Group is proud to present our first listing… This listing is attempting to put the social in social capital. Deep Market also posted the following Social Lending is not Socialism.
He has been a member of my group, following the p2p lending market and commenting on RateLadder for some time.
He is a computer programmer and independently runs the stock market blog Deep Market.
The loan will be a straight forward debt consolidation… Reducing his credit card rates and putting himself on a payment plan will help him eliminate this debt faster…
The debt accumulated from a failed attempt at running his own consultancy… He is back to work with a steady paycheck and cash flow is no longer the issue…
I bid $126.76 @ 1%…
He is in a “moderate” portfolio plan slice at 12.4%… All bids welcome, but if you want to ensure you are on the loan please bid under 12.4% (11.73% as a final rate would have an estimated yield of 8%)…
Here is what prosper says about that slice…
Minimum bid rate: 12.40%
Estimated loss1: -2.59%
Adjustment2: -0.14%
Servicing fee: -1.00%
Estimated return3: 8.67%
Here is the listing.
$25 Bonus For New Lenders
How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other
Other bloggers that are covering this listing (leave a comment or pingback/trackback and I will add you to the list):
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February 12th, 2008 — Listing Review, Prosper.com, Statistics, Strategy, Tools
With my recent loan on Prosper I tried to keep an eye out for interesting stories along the way. In this case I found something I didn’t like as a lender… Prosper explicitly told me not to put up a 25K listing.
As a lender and data junkie I have known for some time that loans asking for the entire $25,000 are riskier than loans asking for $20,000-24,900. That is, listings for $25,000 are more likely to go late and eventually default than loans for slightly less. Intuitively it makes sense that a larger loan should carry a slight risk premium just based on the larger loan amount, but people asking for the maximum a much more likely to be late and default. Asking for the maximum shows desperation and need. Desperate people in need are a higher risk.
I think Prosper should do everything it can to maximize it’s loan volume, but it should not put lipstick on pigs. By coaching borrowers to avoid this red flag of $25,000 they are obfuscating risk…
How did they steer me away from $25,000? See the screen print, specifically the yellow information box.
From a lender’s perspective this makes $24,000 the new $25,000. Lenders adjust accordingly.
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February 8th, 2008 — Listing Review, Prosper.com
So my loan on Prosper closed at a final rate of 9%. What was my social capital worth? Did being a known quantity in the Prosper community help?
To start with I decided to try and measure the average loan rate and standard deviation…
I used the ProProsper Loan Rate Analyzer to look at loans on Prosper in the last 120 days with AA credit grade, DTI from 0%-33%, and amounts from 15K to 25K.
| # Loans |
AVG Amt |
WTAVG Dti |
WTAVG Rate |
WTAVG - ST DEV |
STDEV Rate |
| 104 |
$20,900 |
19.7% |
11.51% |
8.99% |
2.53% |
So if the final loan rates are evenly distributed my loan was within 1 standard deviation. Which would mean that my social capital did not effect the final rate more than normal…
However, I think the final loan rate is not distributed on a standard bell cure. In stead I choose to claim that my social capital was worth 2.5% or the difference between the weighted average and my rate…
What do you think?
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February 6th, 2008 — Listing Review, Prosper.com
Now is your last chance to get a portion of the RateLadder loan request. The auction ends at ~10:50am pst. Don’t miss out on this one. 
$25 Bonus For New Lenders
How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other
February 5th, 2008 — Features, Listing Review, Prosper.com, Statistics, Strategy, Tools
My Prosper Listing has 1 day left in the auction. I reached 100% funding late afternoon last Wednesday. Today is the final day to bid on my loan request. Short of an Act of God this loan is as safe as they come.
My listing fell into the the conservative portfolio plan standing order #2 whose criteria is AA, not automatic funding, 0 current delinquencies, 0-1 inquiries in last 6 months, loan amount >= $10,000, debt to income ratio <= 40%, and 0 public records in the last 10 years. The plan will bid a rate of 10.5% on loans matching the criteria for lenders with cash and other portfolio balancing considerations.
My loan was 100% funded an my rate was bid down to 10.5% in ~ 4 full days. So the portfolio plan had 4 full days in which to add unique bidders onto my loan. Many bids and for what amount were placed by the portfolio plans?
It is impossible to say precisely, but I can tell you how many people bid at 10.5% and I think it is fair to say 90% (maybe more) where from the conservative portfolio plan. In total, I had 193 bids for a total amount of $12,872.87 (~$67 per bid). If 90% of those were from Portfolio Plan bids then 174 bids for $11,658 dollars were from Portfolio Plans. That is a lot of lending and pricing power. (For a full chart of all the bids on my listing grouped by rate bid as of last night please see below.)
$25 Bonus For New Lenders
How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other
I used this code on ProProsper to obtain the data for my listing
select b.MinimumRate as 'Rate Bid', count(b.[key]) as ‘Number of Bids’, sum(b.amount) as ‘Amount Bid’
from listing l inner join bid b on b.listingkey=l.[key]
where listingnumber=272047
group by b.MinimumRate
order by count(b.[key]) desc
| Rate Bid |
Number of Bids |
Amount Bid |
| null |
196 |
24096.4700 |
| 0.105 |
193 |
12872.8700 |
| 0.1223 |
19 |
1356.5900 |
| 0.11 |
15 |
1062.9300 |
| 0.12 |
13 |
1250.0000 |
| 0.115 |
4 |
201.3700 |
| 0.1045 |
4 |
525.0000 |
| 0.104 |
3 |
151.6200 |
| 0.1102 |
3 |
1200.0000 |
| 0.1202 |
3 |
450.0000 |
| 0.1125 |
3 |
226.6200 |
| 0.1035 |
2 |
249.2900 |
| 0.119 |
2 |
510.0000 |
| 0.1105 |
2 |
101.6200 |
| 0.111 |
2 |
100.0000 |
| 0.1025 |
2 |
250.0000 |
| 0.103 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1033 |
1 |
100.0000 |
| 0.1042 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1049 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1111 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1075 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1077 |
1 |
80.0000 |
| 0.109 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1193 |
1 |
65.0200 |
| 0.1195 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1199 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1169 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1175 |
1 |
100.0000 |
| 0.1185 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1149 |
1 |
500.0000 |
| 0.1207 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.121 |
1 |
50.0000 |
| 0.1213 |
1 |
200.0000 |
| 0.122 |
1 |
50.0000 |
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January 31st, 2008 — Listing Review, Prosper.com, Strategy
Sometime late afternoon on Wednesday (1/30/08) my loan reached 100% funding. This is a critical first step in getting a Prosper loan. Without reaching 100% funded you cannot get a Prosper loan. Reaching 100% funded should be the 1st goal of an Prosper borrower and the tools for reaching 100% should be employed to their fullest.
- Choose the right interest rate. Prosper now suggests rates (borrower rate guidance) when you make the listing. Choose the best chance of funding.
- Include a picture. People like to know who they are dealing with.
- Layout why your loan request makes sense financially. Lenders want to know that you understand and control your situation.
- Get endorsements from friends preferably that have bid on your loan. I have 11 endorsements (maybe a bit of overkill) and 11 bids from Prosper friends. I also have a number of bids from friends that are not confirmed Friends on Prosper. Thank you all!
- Answer questions. If a lender takes an interest in your loan enough to ask a question, they deserve an answer. I have answered all but one question asked. The question involved details of my financial life that I am just not comfortable sharing. I intentionally left out an income and budget breakdown from my listing. I do not recommend this if you are trying for your lowest possible interest rate. But I simply did not feel comfortable sharing that information (perhaps to my interest rate detriment). I think my hesitation stems from my position in the community — I am not a stranger posting these facts. In fact, I think I will answer the lenders question in this same statement.
Being open about your financial needs is hard. Scary even. But if your loan makes financial sense and your are honest Prosper Lenders will give you a great rate.
Once you reach 100% funding the real fun begins. Lenders compete for your loan. Each future bid brings a potential loan rate reduction. At the time of writing this blog post (10:36 pm pst on 1/30/08) my loan had been bid down from my starting rate of 12.23% down to 12.08%. There is still 6+ full days of bidding to go. How low can it go?
$25 Bonus For New Lenders
How to Use Prosper Listing Widget for MySpace, Blog, Website, or Other
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January 28th, 2008 — Listing Review
Prosper is diverse and outstandingly egalitarian. I am celebrating that diversity with a pictorial of credit worthy*** borrowers. Everyone of these borrowers has credit worthy of extending credit. Do these photos make you want to bid? Would you give them a loan? Click any picture to be taken to their Prosper listing.
*** Using my own extremely tight lending credit criteria and the existence of a non blurry personal photo and a listing that expires in more than 5 days were my only criteria. Credit Criteria: 0 current delinquencies, 0 delinquencies in the last 7 years, 0 public records in the last 10 years, 0-1 inquires in the last 6 months, 3-85% bankcard utilization. These are all live listings as of 1/27/08 at 8pm pst There were 157 listings at the time ignoring the picture and listing age requirements. This link leads to a search matching the criteria I used to create this pictorial.
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