Peer-to-peer lending sites: MSE guide discussion
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Totally agree. Spreadsheets help a lot. I have a spreadsheet that has everything i own, property, stocks, cash, P2P, etc.
It has a nice pie chart on the first sheet to see the net worth split by asset class. Then i have a sheet for all my accounts including stock broker, P2P and savings. Then i have another sheet that details all my stock investments.
Its as fully automated as i can make it. Just update values in the accounts sheet. I have a vba macro and some python code that imports my stock positions from my broker website - i hold over 30 different lines of stocks/funds etc. Helps me track stock performance and so i can record snapshots every quarter. Automating has saved me a lot of time.
That is excellent with your spreadsheet
it sounds very well set up and more indepth than mine. I am limited knowing the in's and out's of excel, but I spent a fair bit of time last night getting mine overhauled but it was really worth it to check on how my overall investments are and encouraging too. I thought this morning on a pie chart to see how all the assets and investments are broke up, so I can tweek things as I go with it and get some help to set the spreadsheet up further if needed.
It has really helped in seeing how things are broke up, like my S&S ISA as I have several long term growth funds and trackers etc and I have a dividend / IT style portfolio so I have separated this in the spreadsheet so now I can see how much overall is allocated to this against the rest and so on.
I will be able to see what the yearly dividend income is with this section also on the spreadsheet year on year and I would also like to increase the dividend income amount as well so this is another goal I have. I feel I have time on my side too with stocks and shares at 38 as my strategy is buy and hold and buying regular each month and week sometimes with pound cost averaging.
I have all my overall investments and cash inputed.
I must look to add my actual properties into a section for overall net worth, I take it with your spreadsheet you have included your actual home?
I own my properties outright thankfully including my own UK home and 3 properties overseas which I rent and can use at times, the rent covers the running of them and some over so they have been looking after themselves really cost wise. This is were property partner interested me, some equity holdings and hands off buy to let to feed my property interest on a smaller scale without the huge costs of another outright property. It'll be a small allocation overall and nearly for more part interest in it tbh.
So going forward I needed this to keep everything in check overallPeaked a bit under £20k, I expect to target having £30-50k with them, a "full weight" platform allocation. What they do, they seem to do well.
Limitations:
1. No ISA
2. No secondary market
A secondary market there is an interesting challenge at the moment. The seller liquidity part is usually going to be easy. Buyer liquidity will be tougher and probably take inviting expressions of interest for each loan then randomly allocating. A bit like the automatic reinvestment button on some platforms but saying "I want some/more, include me in the random allocation pool". Defaulting to include me for all loans where the buyer has autolend active. Ideally with the ability to set a per-loan ang global cap for each type of loan. Seller comes along and what they are offering gets divided up or more likely randomly allocated in £5 chunks. There are cases where allocations have been high enough for proportional allocation to come into play if a bigger hitter sells what they got.
Thanks James for your reply on unbolted. That was the general consensus I read on various P2P blogs and reviews on Unbolted what they do they seem to very well. It was the pawn that got me to Collateral then I slipped into the property development loans as well there. You have a large investment with Unbolted with the view to increase it so good to hear as always your thoughts on it.
I am not looking out of P2P fully dispite the recent problems and take things to a degree on the chin, I accept risk is part of any investment, so I am just trying to trim things overall against my other investments too and to try and narrow down the best direction to adapt my P2P etc too and how much illiquidity to tie up overall.
If and when I can get some more out of MT I would put some of those funds into Unbolted. You made good points on secondary market idea. I do like they are sticking to what they know and are good at and the pawn style loans. The web site is easy and simple, once my remaining £80 of cash is invested I will add some more for auto invest and so on. Ideally be nice to be feeding funds out from MT and even better from Collateral eventually.
Do you generally cap your platforms at 35k overall each?
I think I need to reduce going on about MT and slowly await on returning funds and outcomes and focus on the new strategy. 0 -
Carolinemjs wrote: »I invested £1000 in Ratesetter a year ago having been tempted by the £100 bonus. I've read the guide and skimmed through this thread, am aware of the risks but haven't grasped the finer detail too well.
I have £5000 I would like to invest in P2P and would appreciate any tips on the easiest places to invest - I just want to allocate the money like I did with Ratesetter, not get involved with whether its being loaned on property etc specifically or anything else complicated.
Should I break the £5000 down into chunks of say £500 or less?
I'm retired and in receipt of the minimum state pension.
Any other beginner advice gratefully received, thank you.
If I were retired and in receipt of the minimum state pension, I wouldn't be putting my savings (unless I had quite a lot of them) into P2P. I would look at the longest/highest rate fixed rate bonds (around 2.2% from memory) but for a bit more risk/return, strong corporate bonds, like the Tesco 2033 or 2029 ones paying about 5% net.illegitimi non carborundum0 -
If I were retired and in receipt of the minimum state pension, I wouldn't be putting my savings (unless I had quite a lot of them) into P2P. I would look at the longest/highest rate fixed rate bonds (around 2.2% from memory) but for a bit more risk/return, strong corporate bonds, like the Tesco 2033 or 2029 ones paying about 5% net.
Thank you, I could easily be dead by then, and putting my money into anything for longer than 2 years doesn't appeal as interest rates just might take a turn for the better.
I particularily wanted to try to do better with some of my savings and am aware of the potential risks 0 -
I am pulling out of p2p, only been in about 12 months. Have loans with Ablrate, Money Thing, Collateral, Assetz Capital and Lendy. About 70 loans ranging from 6 months to 36 months and £4K invested.
I don't need the money, but which is my best strategy, sell everything in the secondary market of wait for the loans to mature.
I know I am asking for a generalisation, but never used the secondary market places before.0 -
nxdmsandkaskdjaqd wrote: »I am pulling out of p2p, only been in about 12 months. Have loans with Ablrate, Money Thing, Collateral, Assetz Capital and Lendy. About 70 loans ranging from 6 months to 36 months and £4K invested.
I don't need the money, but which is my best strategy, sell everything in the secondary market of wait for the loans to mature.
I know I am asking for a generalisation, but never used the secondary market places before.
why are you pulling out of it out of interest?
I am too. I have nearly got out of the ones where there is no fee to exit. For the rest i will wait for maturity/recovery.
But i am sticking with ABL and LW.0 -
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Way too risky and not really cost-effective for a total of £5,000, which effectively prohibits adequate diversification if that route is taken. Also too much selection and monitoring work.I wouldn't be putting my savings (unless I had quite a lot of them) into P2P. I would look at the longest/highest rate fixed rate bonds (around 2.2% from memory) but for a bit more risk/return, strong corporate bonds, like the Tesco 2033 or 2029 ones paying about 5% net.0 -
I'll assume that you mean the full basic state pension of £122.30 a week because the minimum is only a couple of Pounds a week for a person with just one qualifying year.Carolinemjs wrote: »I have £5000 I would like to invest in P2P and would appreciate any tips on the easiest places to invest - I just want to allocate the money like I did with Ratesetter, not get involved with whether its being loaned on property etc specifically or anything else complicated.
Should I break the £5000 down into chunks of say £500 or less?
I'm retired and in receipt of the minimum state pension.
Any other beginner advice gratefully received, thank you.
Before going on to investments, are you less than 75 years old? If you are, are you already paying £2,880 net a year into a personal pension? If you are under 75 and not doing it this should be your first priority because you can make a risk-free £720 a year by doing it. You get your £2,880 topped up by basic rate tax relief to £3,600 even though you don't pay income tax then you can take the whole £3,600 tax free because it's within your personal allowance. The Paying £2880 into pension when retired topic discusses this.
For the P2P I suggest that you look into £1,000 each with Unbolted, Lending Works, Ratesetter, Funding Circle and Ablrate. All except Ablrate automate just about everything, while with Alrate it's easy enough to buy £50-100 chunks on the secondary market to get started then in new loans as they arrive. This will leave you with good diversification of both P2P platforms and borrowers on each platform with little ongoing effort and quite easy exits except for any defaulted loans. For more platform diversification you could add Zopa. These suggestions are for low effort and reasonably rapid access to most of the money, not best overall returns.0 -
Just checked my MT account and £200 sold today of loan parts, so have set these to withdraw and will recycle these funds into other accounts and top Unbolted up a bit from it.
James what is your thoughts on Growth Street? I am trying them for the 30 day credit line loans with auto re-invest, I know returns are not huge, but do you think the platform is ok for this type of loans and an option of having some P2P not overly tied up if needed?0 -
I'll assume that you mean the full basic state pension of £122.30 a week because the minimum is only a couple of Pounds a week for a person with just one qualifying year.
Before going on to investments, are you less than 75 years old? If you are, are you already paying £2,880 net a year into a personal pension? If you are under 75 and not doing it this should be your first priority because you can make a risk-free £720 a year by doing it. You get your £2,880 topped up by basic rate tax relief to £3,600 even though you don't pay income tax then you can take the whole £3,600 tax free because it's within your personal allowance. The Paying £2880 into pension when retired topic discusses this.
For the P2P I suggest that you look into £1,000 each with Unbolted, Lending Works, Ratesetter, Funding Circle and Ablrate. All except Ablrate automate just about everything, while with Alrate it's easy enough to buy £50-100 chunks on the secondary market to get started then in new loans as they arrive. This will leave you with good diversification of both P2P platforms and borrowers on each platform with little ongoing effort and quite easy exits except for any defaulted loans. For more platform diversification you could add Zopa. These suggestions are for low effort and reasonably rapid access to most of the money, not best overall returns.
Thank you jamesd for your reply.
I’m in receipt of the full basic state pension plus an extra few pounds graduated pension, just received notification of the increase.
I’m not yet 75 and followed your advice last year and paid £2880 into a personal pension, will be doing the same again this year - thank you again.
I put £1000 into Ratesetter last year and have got the £100 bonus so I’ll leave that there and go with what you’ve suggested plus Zopa.0
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