Zopa - good loan company?

Ianh82

hi

i am looking to consolidate my borrowings, the credit card is at £2400 and on a 0% card but i have a car loan of £4k outstanding (early settlement of £3308 has been quoted) which goes for another 2 yrs on a high interest rate of 12.9% (19.9% APR) and i can get a Zopa loan for 3 yrs at 6.7% with no early repayment fee's but an £80 loan fee.

i will clear all debt when my house hopefully sell's this yr, but i'm keen for a lower monthly payment and get the CC off my shoulders.

are they a good company to deal with? do most lenders have early repayment charges?

ChopperST

I lend on ZOPA so can only comment on that side of things, however I see nothing but good reports from lenders on their forum which is http://talk.zopa.com/ maybe ask some questions of some existing borrowers there?

Whilst I don't want to talk you out of borrowing with ZOPA - are they the best deal on the market at the moment - many other companies offer low APR's with no early repayment charges?

Ianh82

that's the question Chopper. i am searching for the best deal out there but all seem to be offering me 6.8-7% for a £5700 borrowing. i will do some more investigations. zopa were the best on all the compare sites for loans though.

OneLife_OneShot

Zopa are a peer to peer lender, its people lending other people money and hoping to make some profit from it. From what I understand you need to have an exemplary credit history to be accepted by them.

If you can get it like you say I would pay £80 for a 6.7% rate, are Zopa lending you enough to cover the early settlement fee of £3308 and the £2400 on the CC??

ChopperST

If ZOPA are the best deal out there for you then go for it.

Ianh82

yes, i can borrow anything it seems, up to 10k if i wanted it.
i was thinking of getting the 5.2% 7.5k loan from tesco and buying some laptops and pc's for my little IT business as stock and to make profit on. i have some good opportunities for computer stock to sell on but not sure i want the added amount. could go to 5yr loan to keep repayments down.

Apples2

I lend on ZOPA as a hobby more than anything, seems more exciting to see if there are any late payers. Some borrowers do leave some nice comments to the lenders....which is nice to read.

The bulk of mine only goes to the lowest risks but even I don't lend at 5.2%. The lowest I have lent at is 5.8%. I don't think ZOPA will be matching Tesco's offer for now so if you are accepted, I would go for the Tesco offer.

Ianh82

i am thinking about borrowing 7.5k so i can buy some stock as my friend said i could store at his house as he has a lot of space - he's a long long time friend of 30 yrs so i trust him

4 year loan works out at £169 a mth and they have a 3 mth holiday which would be nice and only 2 mth interest redemtion fee. need to work out the cost of this and shop around. cheaper than my repayment for my car finance now.

easteregg_2

Zopa's fee structure does change daily, but there are certain break-points where the fee will be zero. I have a page which will check the live fees (http://p2pmoney.co.uk/compare/zopafees.htm) and you can use this to see where you can get a lower rate.

It may be advantageous to borrow slightly more than you need to get a lower fee (and hence overall APR) and then repay early the additional funds that you don't need at no extra cost to yourself. You can also earn cashback at the same time if you are a new customer.

Ianh82

i must sound thick but i never realised its a p2p loan site. may be interesting to be a loaner in the future, do you earn good returns? better than banks

BugsyBrowne

Ianh82 wrote: »

i must sound thick but i never realised its a p2p loan site. may be interesting to be a loaner in the future, do you earn good returns? better than banks

Most zopa lenders are the little fish who tend to throw between 2-5k for very little returns but as apples said its more of a hobby then counting the returns.