Entries Tagged 'Prosper Days 2007' ↓

Prosper Days 2008 Announced

Prosper Days 2008
February 25-26, 2008
Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco

Here is the registration page: Prosper Days 2008 Registration

Also new this year…  If you are a member of the press or a blogger you may attend for free: Press Registration

And for nostalgia here is the video of RateLadder at Prosper Days 2007

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  • blog traffic exchangeProsper Repurchases A Loan Yesterday, I had one of those bitter sweet moments.  Sweet in that a loan I had been writing off in my mind as bad was repurchased by Prosper for the full principal balance.  Bitter, because I really believe I am helping people with these loans and yet someone would take......
  • blog traffic exchangeFreakonomics at Prosper Days 2008 Stephen Dubner, co-auther of Freakonomics, will be the keynote speaker at Prosper Days this year. Described as a melding of pop culture and economics with more than 3 million copies sold worldwide. It is a collection of economic articles written by Levitt and then translated into prose meant for......
  • blog traffic exchangeProsper.com Lender Game — Pensioner Initial Update -- 7.08% to 25.23% Pensioner is what he wants to be, it is not what he is.  He has the largest dollar amount portfolio in Prosper with a current account value of well over 800K.  He is an auditor and accountant by trade.  He is local to the San Francisco Bay Area.  In addition, he participated......
  • blog traffic exchangeRateLadder.com will be Presenting at Prosper Days Several days ago I wrote a post entitled Import Prosper.com Listing, Loan, Group, Member Data into Microsoft Sql Server 2000.  I also posted a link in the prosper developer forum.  I circumvented the main problem with the export (rows too large for Sql Server 2000) and posted a how-to (the previous......
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L5 (6th Largest Prosper Lender) Post Debt Sale Portfolio Analysis

L5 is the 6th largest lender (pick your favorite stats site to verify) and he was on the large lender panel at Prosper Days. I asked him for insights in the aftermath of the latest debt sale that his portfolio might have uncovered. As a smaller lender I don’t necessarily have enough vision to be able to draw the most complete conclusions. He has been forthcoming and generous. Enjoy.

My conclusions:

1. Prosper’s current borrower agreement and collection methods lack teeth in subprime. I knew HR’s would be garbage, but E’s have disappointed, too. I suspect some of this is just macro: subprime is overextended and melting down across the board. Thus, E’s and HR’s are best avoided except in rare circumstances.

2. The higher credit grades are now performing better than mid-credit / near-prime (we already have ruled out subprime).

3. For new investments, AA and A seem best poised for solid (if uninspiring returns); B, C, D would be opportunistically and selectively attractive.

4. Homeowners seem to net $.15/dollar while non-homeowners net $.05/dollar or less. Debt sale amounts have been disappointing to say the least. I think a lot of this has to do with how the Prosper borrower contracts are written and structured — I’ve told Prosper they should have stronger default clauses. For instance, > 3 months late and the whole loan should be callable. This would increase aftermarket bad debt sales amounts, I believe. Ditto there should be more / escalating deadbeat fees.

5. I have been impressed that Prosper has stood behind any loans with bad data and bought them back, I’ve had a few of these. So kudos to Prosper for living up to its identity theft guarantee. This frankly reinforces the higher grade credits where this was one of my bigger concerns — seems Prosper will buy them back in ID theft cases ( i.e., they take full responsibility for ID vetting).

Net for me: I’m going to give it more time to see how my portfolio matures. I expect I will get a high single digit positive return from my portfolio when all is said and done. This is OK (I think I will make money), but probably for me at least not enough of a return to warrant the work that’s involved.

If Prosper changes some of its borrow agreement terms to give them more teeth, I think that would change the game and potentially lure me back in. They just aren’t set up to be bad ass enough to deal with subprime deadbeats at present.

(To be clear, I’ve had some really GOOD subprime borrowers, it’s just that the deadbeat loans are defaulting with a higher % and lower collection figure than I had projected, which washes out a lot of the D and all the E returns I had been modeling.)

Well, live and learn — the community is evolving and I think getting better, net. I just need it to improve a bit more before I’d jump back in.

- L5

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RateLadder Presentation At Prosper Days The Video

Here is the video from the 3rd Party Showcase. I was lead off, then Eric from Eric’s Credit Community, then a couple of Berkley Grad Students.

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  • blog traffic exchangeMoney Walks Lists RateLadder.com as an Interesting Prosper.com Blog I was looking into my Google Analytics statistics from 1/9/2007.  (I made it to the 3rd page of Reddit and stayed most of the day with my story Using Prosper.com for Your Emergency Fund - 312% improvement over CD Ladder). 90+% of my traffic came as a reddit referral.  I......
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  • blog traffic exchangeProsper.com Lender Game -- RateLadder_com Initial Update -- 12.61% to 12.61% I am RateLadder.  I run this website.  I am compelling because you are reading this.  This blog documents my journey and is a more extensive writeup of what I am doing and why than any I could provide in a single paragraph.  I encourage you to look around.  I encourage......
  • KGG at Prosper Days 2007Prosper Days Videos If you missed Prosper Days here are the session videos...  Alas, the 3rd Party Tools is not one of the videos... What's up with that? http://www.prosper.com/prm/prosper_days/video.htm And here is the photo gallery... http://picasaweb.google.com/prosperdotcom/ProsperDays2007 One quick highlight from the photo gallery.  Here I am asking Chris Larsen CEO of Prosper, if......
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Prosper Days Videos

If you missed Prosper Days here are the session videos…  Alas, the 3rd Party Tools is not one of the videos… What’s up with that?

http://www.prosper.com/prm/prosper_days/video.htm

And here is the photo gallery…

http://picasaweb.google.com/prosperdotcom/ProsperDays2007

One quick highlight from the photo gallery.  Here I am asking Chris Larsen CEO of Prosper, if I heard him correctly and asking for clarification on linking loans to listings…  He deftly sidestepped the question. 

KGG at Prosper Days 2007

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  • blog traffic exchangeUpdate On The Deadbeat Lenders -- Prosper Responds Earlier in the week I wrote a post about the lenders and group leaders on Prosper that were also borrowers AND LATE on their loans: http://rateladder.com/2007/02/26/please-close-major-loophole-for-deadbeat-lendergroup-leaders/ Basically I was calling for the impounding of the lender funds to pay loan. Well, Prosper has responded via Prosper Andrew: Hi all,    We're......
  • blog traffic exchangeThe Complete Guide To Prosper.com A new book on Prosper.com goes on sale today -- The Complete Guide To Prosper.com. I meet the author at Prosper Days and he gave me an advanced copy... I have read it and here are my thoughts... Books are a tough medium for an up and coming ever......
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Pensioner Responds — Avg Rate Minus Default Rate Does Not Equal Expected Return

Previously I had some additional questions for the Large Lenders on the Prosper Days Panel.

Both L5 and now pensioner have responded.  I would like to thank them for their insights and generosity of time.  As I said about L5, pensioner is a sharp tack and I knew he was thinking correctly, I just wanted to be sure. :)

Here is the response:

I probably did give the erroneous impression during my Prosper Days presentation that I thought that rate minus defaults is equal to ROI. I am well aware that that is not true. On the other hand, when I am scanning listings I do use that as a quick and simple approximation. This was particularly true when I was trying to get my first $750K loaned out. I was making large bids on AF listings so I did not spend much time with precise calculations. At times I bid several thousand dollars after reviewing a listing for a little as 10 seconds, if I thought that the listing was going to be snapped up.

I am planning on studying the ROI white paper, but have not yet found time to do that. You also mentioned IRR calculations, which is another thing I plan to explore, but have not yet found the time for.

I enjoyed your presentation. My favorite part was the contrasting opinions from your friend and your wife on the same listing.

If this or any other of my communications to you have value, you are welcome to share them.

pensioner

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Avg Rate Minus Default Rate Does Not Equal Expected Return — L5 Responds

Previously I had some additional questions for the Large Lenders on the Prosper Days Panel.

L5 Returned my email… Here is his response. If you can’t tell L5 is a sharp tack and I knew he was thinking correctly, I just wanted to be sure :)  

Thanks for your nice comments, RateLadder!  Really good to hear your thoughts.You are absolutely right that interest rate – default (or delinquent) rate doesn’t equal yield ROI.What I was doing (a year’s worth of data then using 1 – current loan %) was a CRUDE approximation.  My point was that even a crude approximation using real data from Prosper is, I feel, more relevant than using the Experian data, especially since I feel zeroing in on extended credit stats is very relevant.Now that Prosper has released their ROI estimate tool based on their portfolio data, this is clearly the benchmark to use.  As they just released this on Monday, I’ve only played with it briefly, so don’t have full comments for you on it.  But it has the advantage of being able to filter based on all the different attributes of Prosper loans, while also giving much better ROI calculations.  Basically there are THREE “deducts” from the average rate column — the three negative numbers — that, as I understand it, you want to sum and deduct from the interest rate proposed by a borrower to get the expected yield.I attended a session where they talked about their methodology for determining the ROI, but I didn’t take detailed notes as they said there was a white paper on the site (or maybe in the forums) that goes into this in details.  So I plan to get the white paper and think others who are interested in this should get it and read it, too.  (Maybe you can post a link to this on your blog.)The key thing they use in ROI is a technique called “roll rates” which estimate on a go-forward basis (based on past data) what percentage of loans in one category will “roll” to the next (worst) category in the next month. For example, their data right now suggests that 3% of C loans will roll to 1-30 days late each month; of those, 25% will roll to 31-60 days late — i.e., 75% “cure” and 25% remain delinquent. Of those that are 61-90 days late, 80% roll (i.e., don’t pay anything), while 20% don’t roll and remain delinquent.  Obviously the roll rates vary based on the characteristics of the loan class being studied — credit grade, extended credit scores, etc. — and you can filter on that.  They also factor in early payoffs, which is nice, but I think not hugely relevant to me.They did say that their calculations were different than IRR… I didn’t understand the exact differences, but I think the white paper goes into.So, anyway, find the white paper and you (and I) will have answers.  Good questions.Feel free to post this to your blog if it’s useful.

Wishing you the very best,

- L5

L5 appreciates Haiku…  So this is for him:

R O I

Rate Minus Default?

No Markov

I will be tracking down this white paper.  Prosper Andrew (Top notch.  Be nice to him and doors are unlocked.  He would do quite well with a donation button. :)  responded to a forums request by posting a link in the forums. Here it is: http://www.prosper.com/public/help/topics/lender-marketplace_performance_calculation.aspx
 

Update pensioner responds: http://www.rateladder.com/2007/02/14/pensioner-responds-avg-rate-minus-default-rate-does-not-equal-expected-return/

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Prosper Standing Order Lending Strategy Updated Post Prosper Days 2007

In the large lender panel pensioner state that he focuses exclusively on 20%+ loans and C, D, and E credit grades.  While I don’t have the risk tolerance for those default rates  I thought I should impose a rate floor.  I have chosen 15%.  I have adjusted all my standing orders to no longer bid on any loan less than 15%.  If a standing order had a lower rate for a particular grade I raised the rate to 15%.  All other rates remain the weighted average over the last 100 days plus 1.5%.

In addition, I have chosen to add an additional extended credit requirement.  I will now only bid on listings that have a debt utilization of 5%-70%.  I am not able to test this new assumption using the Prosper ROI performance tool as that information does not exist in old data.

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Prosper Days Day 2 Update

The 2nd session was the Big Lender Panel.  It was great.  Worth the price of admission.  The Lenders (with links to their portfolio) were pensioner, L5, and janeybooboo.  They are all manual bidders and from the sound of it they spend quite a bit of time vetting the borrowers.  The biggest thing I took away from it is that they have no problem filling their capacity.  The question I would like to ask them that I didn’t is this….

Subtracting the default rate from the interest rate does not give the ROI.  (I think they were implying it was an approximation for ROI.)  In order to calculate ROI you need to use a Markov model and assume some default characteristics such as default rates over the life of the loan.  (Similar to the new performance tool, but I think they are making some assumptions.)  Given that I use standing orders what I would rather do is Monte Carlo a Standing Order against the data and see the actual IRR.  Are they in fact using a Markov model or similar?  And I would love to know what their Prosper IRR is using my definition.

Update L5 responds: http://www.rateladder.com/2007/02/14/avg-rate-minus-default-rate-does-not-equal-expected-return/

Update pensioner responds: http://www.rateladder.com/2007/02/14/pensioner-responds-avg-rate-minus-default-rate-does-not-equal-expected-return/
The morning session (Lender Portfolio Analysis) was kinda blah and I will spare the details… I found it to be a rehash of the forums advice.  The new ROI tool was one topic.  I learned a little about it’s internals, but I look forward to reading the “white paper”.  Here is a link: http://www.prosper.com/public/help/topics/lender-marketplace_performance_calculation.aspx
 

 

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  • :)Pensioner Responds -- Avg Rate Minus Default Rate Does Not Equal Expected Return Previously I had some additional questions for the Large Lenders on the Prosper Days Panel. Both L5 and now pensioner have responded.  I would like to thank them for their insights and generosity of time.  As I said about L5, pensioner is a sharp tack and I knew he was......
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RateLadder at Prosper Days Day2

I have been playing with the new ROI tool this morning.  In some ways it is quite cool, but I don’t have a good feel for what it is trying to tell me except stay away from the old HR.  No problem there the RateLadder Portfolio is AA-D with a B+ average weighting.  At first glance, it seems they made some trade offs between ease of use and transparency.  Here is the documentation for the ROI calcualtor: http://www.prosper.com/public/help/topics/lender-marketplace_performance.aspx 

I think I will be attending the 9am Portfolio Analysis for Lenders and the 10:30am Lender Panel.  I am the 6’10″ guy with a beard, please say hello.

Portfolio Analysis for Lenders:

This presentation begins with an expert demonstration of the marketplace performance tools, lender statements and accounting details by the engineers who built them.  Then Kirk (CFO) will demonstrate how to use these tools to derive optimum lending portfolio ROI.  Attendees will have opportunity to ask questions of the pros.

Lender Panel:

Learn from Prosper old timers in this session featuring several of Prosper’s biggest lenders who will share their personal strategies for lending including:

  • What they look for in a listing
  • What types of listings they steer clear of
  • What pitfalls they avoid in lending decisions
  • Their ‘secret sauce’ based on their personal experiences
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Prosper Days Update

RateLadder Presentation at 3rd Party Tools Showcase was very well received.  I would have liked a little more time for questions and answers, but the fact that people wanted to ask questions was great…  I got some laughs and genuinely had a great time.  There was probably 60 people at the presentation.  If you were at the presentation please leave comments.

Let me back up.  Eric Petroelje from Eric’s Credit Community was leading off… unfortunately the wireless connection went haywire right before he started.  He handled it very well and started in on his site without visual aids.  I was asked to start while they fixed the connection.

This illustrates that you should never give a live demo unless you can control all the variables.  Same idea, but I always heard that you should never ask a question you don’t know the answer too.

A couple of undergrad students at Berkley (David McIntosh and ???) presented the data analysis they had done in preparation for evaluating keywords in loans and the results.  Their talk focused on loan funding.  I would be more interested in default rates.  Regardless, they aren’t publishing the results yet for fear borrowers might game the system.

One interesting question I was asked: 

Have I ever considered investing for someone else? 

The prospect intrigues me, but I don’t see how the economies of scale would work…  If I were charge 20% of the profit and I could earn 16% then I would need to be investing just over 3 million (10% of all loans at this time) before I would break 100K in compensation.  So I guess I don’t see how someone could afford to pay for my time. 

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  • blog traffic exchangeImport Prosper.com Listing, Loan, Group, Member Data into Microsoft Sql Server 2000 Prosper.com makes all publicly available data accessible via a data export.  They also provide tools for importing that data into Microsoft Sql Server 2005.  What they don't provide is a mechanisms for getting this data into other databases, specifically in my case Microsoft Sql Server 2000.  I have succeeded in......
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  • blog traffic exchange Prosper.com Lender Game — Retireme99 Initial Update — 10.16% to 14.88% Retireme99 wrote his own intro: I started lending in May 2006... let the money sit for awhile to see how it worked... then got back into it more actively recently.  Looking at my results I have been happy that only two loans have gone 1+ months late.  I have another......
  • blog traffic exchangeWhy My Emergency Fund is Not in Prosper.com Loans In a previous post I wrote about Using Prosper.com as an Emergency Fund Everybody knows you should have an emergency fund. The fund is to be tapped in times of financial stress.  However, individual requirements as to liquidity and size vary on a case by case basis.  Personally, without getting......
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