Peer-to-peer lending sites: MSE guide discussion

takesyourchances wrote: »

What is your thoughts going forward at the moment James with MT, are you also looking to scale back from the platform?

Depends on the individual loans and what else is going on.

On looking further, the official ablrate rep on that forum "ablrate" posted this yesterday Quote: We have contacted the administrators to see if there is anything we can do to assist.

I don't think ABL have any expertise in development loans do they? It's not even just that the COL loans need running down, some of the development loans need additional tranches to complete ie more money to be raised, and even though the borrowers are blameless re the present troubles they will probably be stuck with the bad reputation.

Some of the earlier tranche of the MT Everton Brow loan that was withdrawn today is available on the secondary market. I suggest not buying it. There's a chance that the borrower may be unable to find replacement financing for that tranche, leading to a default instead. If you want some, better to invest in it if it shows up at another P2P site. That way you'll be helping the developer with the refinance as well.

jamesd wrote: »

No, but they might be able to help with runoff or might even want do do some property development or bridging lending. Collateral was starting to do useful things on the loan tracking front. Ablrate might also be interested in hiring people who've lost their jobs.

I would love to see Ablrate steer away from property development loans, hopefully they can keep away from this route that Collateral took and MT with these.

I am not surprised the MT development loan did not fill and was withdrawn, the appetite of investors on the platform for this is maybe changing direction with recent problems and funds tied up.

jamesd wrote: »

Well, property development is arguably the riskiest type of P2P lending so no surprise to have some issues, particularly as people learn about what can go wrong and how badly. I'm very glad that I took the view I did about Lendy and avoided them, though! I'm not greatly keen to have Ablrate do it either.

For anyone who wants more at Ablrate I'm seeing secondary market prices there for some loans that are as much as or more than 1% lower than usual. I can't exploit it at the moment because of end of tax year things and the need to have a lot of money for building work but maybe you can. It's a good chance to do more diversifying.

Totally agree on the risk of property developments, Lendy never appealed to me either and I see a string of development defaults on their default list.

When Ablrate sent out their email following Collateral, I replied in general and said I hoped they would not go down the property development route, never got reply, but thought it was at least some feedback to the platform.

The property developments became too much for Collateral to fill and the tipping point came not long after they admitted that, MT is struggling with appeal for these too. I think the second Scotland loan was not getting much / slow interest too. Fingers crossed Ablrate stay with the direction they are in and I would be disappointed if the development route started to appear. Tbh I would prefer to be in their portfolio loans over property developments with lesser rate even with liquidity that comes with those, it would seem to be more stable if your prepared to hold.

Thanks for the tip for Ablrate, I don't have much spare funds this week after investing some already in other areas, just re-investing re-payments as they come in to Albrate and will await what else comes up on the platform.