Prosperous Land Blog

I Surrender

2008-06-09T14:14:00.002-05:00

I started a new job a while back. A very good move for me and my family, but horrible for my free time and my free brainpower. I tried to deny it, but the reality is that I've got nothing left. I could pretend otherwise, but that's self-delusion. I still believe in Prosper and will keep lending, but Prosperous Land is going DOA for a while. If things settle down, I may return.

Where Will That Rebate Check Go

2008-05-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

With the IRS blasting an estimated $105 billion dollars toward the public, the great question is where that check will go. I'm skeptical that it'll provide the economic stimulus that folks in government were expecting - I've always assumed that folks will use it to pay off credit card bills or buy their next tank of gas, neither of which stimulates the US economy. But paying off bills will get

Prosper.com April Marketplace Survey

2008-05-22T13:47:00.000-05:00

Prosper's April Marketplace survey was an interesting read. Mostly for the disclaimers at the bottom. Prosper's definition of "Attractive Risk-Return Tradeoff" was insightful. Attractive Risk-Return Tradeoff: For purposes of this survey release, listings are considered to have attractive returns if, based on historical loan repayment performance of Prosper

Prosper.com Feature Upgrade

2008-05-20T13:27:00.000-05:00

Prosper did a feature drop the night of the 18th, and Andrew posted about it on the Prosper blog. This was an infrastructure drop, with improvements to the backend, but nothing visible right now: Improved institutional lender supportImproved credit report reporting (for borrowers)Preparation for bankruptcy trackingImproved data handling for loan originationThe most interesting item for lenders is

Prosper Newsletter: Portfolio ROI Falls

2008-05-19T12:49:00.000-05:00

Prosper sent out a monthly newsletter that hit my email box today. The most astounding thing has been the rather notable fall in the portfolio ROI. I had a hard time believing that the conservative portfolio estimated return had dropped to 5.10%. I remember the heady days of 8% anticipated returns with the Conservative portfolio. With Bankrate showing some 3-year CDs offering 4.45%, what exactly

April Prosper.com Collections Update

2008-05-16T15:15:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm alive. I took a week off for my brother's graduation. Unfortunately, no internet where we were staying. D'oh. I'm digging back in. On to the substance: This is part of my ongoing series monitoring collections efficiency (March's report for comparison). For a reminder on the methodology, I took a snapshot of all of Prosper's loans on April 1 and compared their current status against

Default Sale Delayed

2008-05-05T12:15:00.000-05:00

I like that Prosper is putting up more posts from their folks on their blog. Today's post was an update on the default sale by Doug Fuller. The punchline - the bad-loan marketplace is buyer market and a seller's nightmare: As a result of these efforts, Prosper received a record number of bids on the sale file (eight). Unfortunately, all of the bids were extremely low. As I mentioned in my last

More On State Sales Tax Collections

2008-05-02T09:53:00.000-05:00

State sales tax collections are a strong indicator of whether a state is going into a recession or not. This is useful information for lenders since loan default rates are known to correlate with recessions. After my last post on this, Calculated Risk has dug up a useful graphic from a Rockefeller Institute report that gives a heat map for year over year sales tax collections changes. Green is

Quiet Period

2008-04-29T12:14:00.001-05:00

I know it's been real quiet around here. I've had to take a few weeks to work through some non-Prosper things and it's seriously cut into my blogging time. I should return to a more normal blogging schedule next week.

Many States Looking At Recession

2008-04-25T11:37:00.000-05:00

I had picked on a few states before, but, according to Yahoo, it looks like a majority of the states are now facing budget shortfalls, a likely indicator for a recession and higher default rates than projected by current Prosper statistics By mid-April, 16 states and Puerto Rico were reporting shortfalls in their current budgets as the revenue those budgets were built on -- typically, taxes --

High ROI Lender Panel Video Surfaces

2008-04-25T09:27:00.001-05:00

The video for the infamous high ROI lender panel has surfaced on Google Video. LoanChimp and HollowOak have observed that spans of time appear to be missing from the video.

Prosper Days 2008 Videos Up On Google

2008-04-18T10:21:00.005-05:00

Prosper has released video footage from Prosper days to Google Video. I havn't had a chance to go through it all yet, so that'll be coming, but why should that stop you? Based on all the reports out of Prosper Days, I suggest that lenders should scroll down to collections practices, start there, and then go back and experience it all. Monday Prosper 101 (ran in parallel with registration)

Prosper Changes Bidding Guidance & Portfolios Too

2008-04-16T16:08:00.000-05:00

In addition to the large changes announced yesterday, Prosper swept a few changes in more quietly. Specifically, they tweaked with their portfolio slices and drastically increased the number of bins used for lender bidding guidance. First, the portfolios. The conservative and balanced portfolios had the loan criteria tweaked. A quick comparison shows that the conservative portfolio had the

New And Shiny Prosper Interest Rates

2008-04-15T13:37:00.002-05:00

Prosper dropped a large bomb this morning with their latest site upgrade. The headline topic: 36% interest rates everywhere [1]. Besides being miffed that they couldn't have announced it one day earlier and saved me some time, I find this to be a phenomenal development. Prosper has been limited in their growth due to the state usury limits, and this should increase the borrower volume, especially

Time For Prosper To Drop The Bank Draft Fee?

2008-04-14T15:00:00.001-05:00

Update: Darn it Prosper. Obsoleting my post less than 24 hours after I finished writing it. I'll keep it around for posterity. A while back, I noted that almost all portfolio-worthy loans are funding and this is driving Prosper's loan creation engine. A survey through a few portfolio criteria confirms this to still be true. For Prosper to extend and increase their loan volume, it's critical to

Digging Through The Prosper.com Help Wanted Section

2008-04-12T14:25:00.000-05:00

Prosper does list jobs on their website, but it's PR washed and very blah. The recruiters seem to have more fun when they post Craigslist listings, and they leave some interesting crumbs in their wake. For example, Prosper's looking for a new Product Manager because marketing is taking over the website look and feel (which begs the question - who has it now?): The content of every single

Interesting Way To Get Prosper Money Back

2008-04-11T10:31:00.000-05:00

This Prosper lender had found a creative way to liquidate all the loans he's holding: take out a loan against them. Purpose of loan: This loan will be used to pay off my current Prosper Lending Account. I no longer have the time to manage this, and would like to use my lending funds towards something else at this time. Cash balance: $26.78 Value of loans: + $14,959.08 Payments in transit:

Prosper's March Marketplace Summary

2008-04-10T13:40:00.000-05:00

Two days ago, Prosper released their March Marketplace Summary (also on Business Wire). As always, the most interesting part is Chris Larsen's marketplace commentary: As we have previously reported, Prosper’s mix of “well priced” loans – loans with an attractive risk-return tradeoff – has dramatically changed from the same period last year with approximately a

Lending Club Halts New Lenders. Prosper Next?

2008-04-09T14:35:00.004-05:00

Lending Club has announced that they're not allowing lenders to invest in loans until they get a few things sorted out with the government (I'm assuming the SEC): Lending Club has started a process to register, with the appropriate securities authorities, promissory notes that may be offered and sold to lenders through our site in the future. Until we complete the registration process,

Prosper Listing Word Analysis

2008-04-09T13:36:00.000-05:00

Word analysis has gone in and out of vogue among Prosper lenders. Right now, it's in vogue here at Prosperous Land. The premise is that you can get hints about the quality of a listing based on words that appear in the listing description. I've been messing with it to try and get a statistically significant edge (proving it provides an edge, now there's a dicey proposition), but some interesting

March Prosper.com Collections Update

2008-04-08T11:27:00.001-05:00

This is part of my ongoing series monitoring collections efficiency (February's report for comparison). For a reminder on the methodology, I took a snapshot of all of Prosper's loans on March 3 (yes, I'm a doofus and missed March 1) and compared their current status against those same loans on April 1. Presumably, loans that don't get further behind have some kind of money extracted in the

Figuring Prosper's Maximum Allowable Loan Rate

2008-04-07T09:15:00.001-05:00

I often get confused when I look at a state like New Jersey that has a 16% interest rate cap due to state laws but then see listings where the maximum interest rate is 12.84%. This makes no sense in any practical universe, so what's going on? The answer, my friends, is a confluence of Prosper's payment choices and government regulation (see, it doesn't have to make sense). The Bank Draft

What A Coincidence

2008-04-06T15:36:00.002-05:00

I happened to be playing with Prosperous Land visitor statistics and I happened to notice that about 10% of my web traffic in March came from San Francisco. What are the odds? While I'm mentioning the site, I'll working up the mental fortitude to tinker with the site layout. It's a confluence of Google adding some cool (beta) widgets to the Blogger system and my desire to get away from one of

LoanChimp's Prosper.com Lending Tips

2008-04-04T10:23:00.000-05:00

LoanChimp has provided a handy set of Prosper lender tips (in 8 parts, thus far) that are good advice to any new (and existing) Prosper lender. However, going through all the posts is quite tedious, so here's my quick crib sheet: You don't know everything. Just admit it. It'll make things easier. You're here to make money, not provide handouts. This isn't gambling. Don't take chances.Don't be

Alt-A And Sub-prime Interactive Map

2008-04-03T12:46:00.000-05:00

The New York Federal Reserve Bank has put together a pretty entertaining interactive map showing how bad things are in the alt-A and sub-prime mortgage space (hat tip The Big Picture). That's the wonderful state of Texas up there. The NY Fed also published, in spreadsheet form, their supporting data. If you don't want to spend lots of time navigating the map to figure it out, California and