Peer to peer lending

[casawasa]

Has anyone got any experience of peer to peer lending? If so have you had good experiences?

Thanks

[kalidasa]

I do, in fact I think I mentioned it in a post a day or two ago. But I've only started recently so too early to give much feedback, except that the websites I looked at while choosing were all well-organised and simple to use. NB that it is fairly high-risk, and at the moment the industry is not much regulated. I am happy with some fairly high-risk investment as part of a larger portfolio. But I have quite a high "appetite for risk" as they call it (!) and also enjoy making these sorts of decisions for myself. DH finds the whole thing ghastly and nerve-wracking and just wants something super-safe he can forget about!

[evilkitten]

Peer 2 Peer lending is a nice idea, and there are a number of website out there that make it easy (e.g. Zopa, Funding Circle). It's quite an active and exciting way of investing.

However, there is a major issue, and that's that the losses you make (bad debt etc.) can't be offset against profits for tax purposes. This made the whole thing unfeasible for me.

[Teddy555]

So how much do you need (on average) to invest in p2p?

[MuswellHillDad]

I did some Zopa lending over the last 3-4 years.

I lent only to borrowers with the highest credit score.

Bad loans were 0.48% of the money invested and fees were about 2% of the money invested. The net interest earned over the whole period was about 6%, before tax. That's quite low given it took more than a year to earn it. In addition, current interest rates are lower so future net interest would be lower still.

[ihatethecold]

I took out a peer to peer loan a couple of months ago.

So far it's all ok, I can pay it back anytime without penalty.