Archive for the ‘ Prosper Group Leaders ’ Category

Welcome to Prosper – the marketplace for loans —America’s only true auction- based peer-to-peer lending company. We are in a constant pursuit to ensure you can invest on the world’s most transparent and durable personal loans trading platform. Prosper delivers competitive rates of return ranging from 7.18% for AA listings to 4.59% for E Prosper Rating listings, based on return on investment for all loans as of 6/30/2009. These are healthy returns that confirm peer-to-peer lending is a viable alternative asset class in which to invest.

Individual Listings: increased layers of safety

Those of you who are returning lenders will be familiar with our bidding system on Direct Peer-to-Peer loans.

New borrowers are now required to meet the new minimum credit score requirement of 640.  They can request up to $25,000 for a three-year fixed rate loan.

Lenders can now start their bidding with $25.00 (previously $50.00) which will make it easier to create a diversified portfolio. 

Prosper has also improved its risk rating system with the introduction of a new proprietary system called Prosper Ratings ranging from AA – HR.  Each Rating represents a loss rate range. Prosper Ratings are based on historical loan performance data and are designed to better convey risk. The Prosper Rating letter grade will now be shown in the listing along with an estimated loss rate, and a narrower credit score range. Credit scores shown will be in 20 point ranges (previously 40). Click here to learn more about Prosper Ratings

You can search listings by either Prosper Rating or specific keywords. You then bid on listings of your choice—offering a great rate for both you and borrowers. Portfolio plans are also available.

Fine-Tuned Bidding for Lenders

Prosper has enhanced its auction model to include a hard bid floor for each listing. This helps our Lenders identify the absolute minimum they can bid. This is an absolute minimum: Lenders should always price for risk in order to achieve an adequate return. Remember the higher the risk, the higher your bid should be.

No matter which listings you choose to bid upon—or whether you’re a lender or borrower—you remain in control of your bid at all times. Learn more about the bid rate floor

Lenders will now be bidding on yield. The minimum bid rate is now net of the 1% servicing fee. Previously, if you bid 18% and were a winning bidder on a loan, you would receive interest at 18% and after paying a 1% servicing fee, your return on the loan would be 17%. Now, your equivalent bid would be 17%, which we call bid yield. Learn more about bidding on yield

Trade Existing Notes

With Prosper’s new Trading Platform, you can now put your Notes up for sale on our Note Trader by Folio Investing for quick and easy trades. You will be able to browse and purchase Notes there, too.

The Trading Platform will give Prosper lenders the ability to sell a Note if they need access to the funds before the full loan is paid off. It will also give Prosper lenders more investing options by giving them an opportunity to bid on loans they missed out on when the loans were first listed, or to invest in loans with durations that meet their specific investing objectives.

All loans made after July 13, 2009 are eligible to be placed on the Note Trader platform.

Prosper—Ushering in a New Financial Era

As we’ve seen, the old ways of investing and banking are broken.

Prosper offers you a different—and better—way to get competitive rates. We provide a financially and socially rewarding way to invest in our nation with unparalleled openness and transparency.

We’re firmly committed to the idea of Americans helping Americans and driving our country’s economy. Why not join us and become a financial hero today?

I am mostly a lender and have participated on Prosper since August, 2006. I have checked my credit grade as a borrower and found that I have AA credit due to six figures worth of credit available and very low utilization. The only balances I carry are on credit cards with 0% interest rates.

A few years ago, I had an opportunity for a job where I had to move half-way across the country. To do this, I had to prepare my house for sale and get set up in a new location in a matter of weeks. I ended up using a lot of my available credit for a short time until my house sold but the credit was available and I had no problem paying off the ~$20K in debt that I incurred as part of the process for the short time I needed it. I think I ended up paying less than $100 in interest over that short period of time with no missed payments. If I had had poor or no credit available this move would have been a lot more difficult to do.

I’ve looked at a lot of borrower’s credit profiles on here and I see a lot of people whose problem is not that they have bad credit but that they hardly have any credit at all. I see people with one or two lines of credit, nearly maxed out trying to get a loan here with D credit in a rate capped state. If they had had 5 or 6 credit cards instead of 1 with a limit of only $500, they would have A or B credit and no problems getting a Prosper loan due to lower utilization.

You can never have too much credit. Credit scores or grades are a numeric estimate of trust. For example, if a friend wants to borrow your car, you are more likely to let them use it if you know your friend is a good driver. The same is true with lenders. If you appear to use your credit wisely, they are more likely to want to loan you money.

But don’t confuse credit with money. I know of people, when they get a credit card with a limit of $500 or $1000, they head straight to the mall and spend it all up then make minimum payments the rest of their life and wonder why they have low credit scores. They never have credit when they need it because they misuse what they have.

Utilization percentage on a credit card is one of the biggest factors affecting a credit score. If you have a lot of credit but use very little, it shows you are trustworthy. If you have little credit or use most of what you have, your credit score will drop and it will be hard to get a loan when you need it.

To build credit, consider these tips:

• If you have very little credit, never turn down credit offers (unless they are unreasonably expensive). You never know when you might need it.
• Never charge more than you can pay when the bill is due.
• Pay your bills on time.
• Keep your utilization low.
• Don’t carry a balance. It’s not necessary in order to build credit and it costs you interest.
• If you pay off a balance, don’t close the account unless it will cost you money to keep it. An open, unused balance will help your utilization percentage and your credit score.

You can read more about how credit scores are calculated at Wikipedia’s FICO Score page.

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zcommodore is a Prosper lender and the group leader of Quality Assistance for Borrowers he also write about at his blog: Random Thoughts About Prosper.

The Prosper Community is a dynamic group of borrowers, lenders, and group leaders, all brought together for the common purpose of exchanging money.  Over the past year and a half that I have been a part of it I have seen friendships form, enemies get created, and romances take place.  Prosper touches a spot in all of our lives, and whether we love it or wonder just why we are here, very few can remain ambivalent.

Prosper itself is a lesson in life, and it’s a lesson that is difficult for some of us to handle.  Many of us came to Prosper truly believing in our fellow humans, listening to the sob stories of borrowers and hoping to make the difference that will turn their lives around.  Through the difficult trials of watching our first late payment, followed by more, and our first default, also followed by more, all accompanied by a fall in our expected ROI, some of us have learned about a side of human nature that we never knew before.  We lose some of our trust and become hardened to the stories being shared by the new borrowers that come along.

There is a huge diversity among the community, from lenders looking for a place to stick some extra money down to the borrowers that are living paycheck to paycheck, and everyone in between.  This frequently leads to misunderstandings between community members.  People handle misunderstandings differently, and some people leave the community angry, while others use it as an opportunity to learn something and improve themselves. 

One of my favorite aspects of the community is watching borrowers that are barely making it come here requesting a loan, and ending up not only getting their finances under control, but becoming an active member of the community and offering advice to others that are in the position they started out in.  Making a difference in people’s lives is what I see Prosper as really being about.

While the community has gone through its ups and downs, being a part of it is an experience I would never give up.  I have grown in many ways.

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Shenandoah is a lender and group leader on Prosper.  Her Prosper group Rocky Mountain Community is for residents of the Rocky Mountains, specifically in the Colorado and Wyoming areas .