LendingStats Accounts, Extended Credit Data, Watch Lists & More
May 1st, 2008 | News & UpdatesThis update took a little longer than usual because it contains a significant amount of changes. Sorry about keeping you waiting :-) If you notice any bugs, shoot an email to . We’re still going through all the feedback that’s accumulated, so give us some time to get back to you.
The update is broken up into two parts: account and non-account related features.
Account functionality:
- Added filtering by extended credit data to the following pages: Lender Profile, Historical Performance, Total Loans Funded, Listing Profile, Active Listings.
- Added Lender Watch Lists which allow you to create, aggregate, and track a customized group of lenders. You can see the aggregate results as a Watch List Profile, which work like the Lender/Group Profiles.
- Create custom profiles and run them against different lenders using the lender analysis tool: LendingStats_dot_com Profile.
- The Loan History page allows you to see the payment history of a particular loan.
Non-account functionality:
- Updated the Listing Picker page. You can now customize and see exactly how the Consensus rating is generated.
- Added a Bidding Activity page where you can see the bidding activity on Prosper by month and by day.
- Added a new chart section to Lender Profiles. You can now see a detailed breakdown of your lender portfolio by Loans Funded, Bidding Activity and Loan Map.
- Switched the late rate calculation from Penncro to FirstSource. You will notice a small drop in ROI if you have a significant amount of lates since FirstSource recovery rates are currently lower.
- Updated the way lender/group rank is calculated. They will now be based on the estimated portfolio size. The top lender/group lists on the home page have been updated as well. (NewHorizon)
- Added a shortcut to the top right search field that allows you to go to a listing page directly. Just type in the listing number.
- You can now filter lender and group lists by 12 and 18 month loan ages. (Johan)
May 1st, 2008 at 9:27 am
You should read this link.Sorry if it comes across as me against your site,because i’m not.It’s just some of the ROI’s are getting way out of whack.
http://www.prospers.org/forum/so_you_like_your_lendingstats_roi-t6874.0.html
May 1st, 2008 at 11:20 am
bama: I’m going to look into this. Here’s my reply to NewHorizon in the previous blog post. This will definately get looked into immediately (like today :))
“NewHorizon: Thanks for bringing the thread to my attention.
I skimmed through the posts and the 2 main reasons the ROIs are ‘higher’ then they should be are as follows:
1) Late rates were being calculated using the old Penncro Collection rates offered by Prosper, these were significantly higher then the FirstSource rates we’ll be using now.
2) Default sale prices are being calculated based on the first batch of loans Prosper sold. This ’sale price’ has significantly dropped if I’m understanding correctly. (You probably won’t get 30% back for a C homeowner on default now). Going to look into getting a more accurate estimate of default sale prices.
I’ll have more time to look into these things now since the new update is out. :)”
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:29 am
You won’t find “more accurate default rates” because prosper isn’t selling the loans for reasons that I’m not clear about. I have several (10?) loans that are now six or more months overdue, and none of them have been sold.
Prosper did sell the first batch, but in my opinion is not selling defaulted loans now because doing so will require the losses to be shown, and this will reflect the terrible returns that most investors are getting on prosper. Less than 5% net return on unsecured loans is terrible, considering you can get FDIC insured deposit interest rates at 5% or more. I expect defaulted loans to be sold for 1-2% of the face value, not 10 to 30%. that’s a guess — but prosper not selling defaulted loans isn’t a guess. No defaulted loan sales at all that I know of.
The risk of loss on prosper is not being properly compensated.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
You’ve been busy! It’s looking better and better…
The breadcrumbs always show:
” Lender Statistics > Profile > Shark [ Add to Watch List new] ”
…regardless of which lender profile page I’m at and regardless of whether I’m logged in or not.
Separately, I’m not understanding why the new filtering criteria found in the “Extended Credit Section” section wasn’t just added to the filtering criteria already in the “Customize” section…? As it stands, if I want to see 0 DQs for “A” credit grade, it appears that I need to take two passes.
It’d be really cool if one could filter on *bidding* endorsers, btw. I understand the structure of Prosper’s data makes that difficult, tho’.
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
In the “Prosper loan grown by month” charts for the individual lenders, it’s difficult to discern which months were inactive. This is because such months are absent from the chart. Here:
http://www.lendingstats.com/lenders/URBI_ET_ORBI/loansFunded
… the month after October 2007 is February 2008, for example.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:43 pm
NewHorizon, fixed the bread crumb issue. Thanks for the heads up.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:43 am
I think we found out the value of 4+ lates from Doug Fuller. blog.prosper.com
I’m guessing if they are ever sold,it will be for about 3%
6.5m in defaults is gonna surpass all the other debt sales combined.I guess PMI will still be able to find some slices of performance to pimp.
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:45 am
Love what you do.Keep it up. i’m off to click a few ads
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
NewHorizon: The reason the Extended Credit Data was split into it’s own section was so the Customize section didn’t look so bloated. (If you expand both, the whole page is taken up by the drop down).
As for making 2 passes, you can actually enter all the data and click the Generate or Filter button and the criteria you entered from both sections will take effect.
“In the “Prosper loan grown by month” charts for the individual lenders, it’s difficult to discern which months were inactive. This is because such months are absent from the chart.”
Thanks for noticing this is going to get patched ASAP. (Within a day or 2 since the code is already done.)
bamalucky: I can easily ‘tweak’ the default sale price in the calculations but I’m going to hold off for now. (I’m looking for a more accurate way to do it and if it doesn’t work I’ll have to take a look at the recently sold loans and estimate an average sale price.)
May 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
NewHorizon: “In the “Prosper loan grown by month” charts for the individual lenders, it’s difficult to discern which months were inactive. This is because such months are absent from the chart.”
This is patched on the website. :)
May 5th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Is anyone else disillusioned with Prosper? I’ve been invested in A and AA loans (lately AA exclusively), I’m reading the loan descriptions carefully but I still can’t make any money. I’m currently making 8% return, but once my crop of late payment become default, I’ll be in negative territory.
I’m certainly not investing any new money in Prosper, but I’ve been funding loans whenever my account accumulates $50. I’m thinking it’s best to cut my losses and divest myself entirely. Your thoughts??
http://www.lendingstats.com/lenders/westof8th
May 5th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
westof8th: I looked at your 5 late loans and noticed a few of the common things that I avoid as a lender. :)
1) The larger the loan the more chances of default.
2) Avoid borrowers with many inquiries.
3) Avoid automatic funded listings.
4) Only bid on listings with a clean credit history.
Out of your 5 lates:
1) 4 of them were for $20,000 or more.
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/93308
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/91884
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/93637
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/163439
2) 1 of them had a current delinquency.
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/93308
3) 1 of them had a lot of inquiries.
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/163439
4) 1 of them was automatic funding.
http://www.lendingstats.com/listings/92964
——————————————————————————————————————-
I think you can benefit from doing some more research. (Which reminds me, I should probably write some blog posts regarding things to avoid when lending… which would save some lenders a lot of agony).
You could of avoided 4/5 of your lates had you just refused to lend to people requesting more then$20,000.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Westof8th
Late loans can really be unsettling
What I do is -as I accumulate $50.00- I reinvest in Prosper
Then with the next accumulated $50.00- I transfer it back to my bank account
This way you can stay in and yet be getting out
But I will probably reinvest with a lump sum-equal or more than my initial investment when
I think a few more kinks are worked out
Because I really do believe this is a great idea
And when done right- lender and borrower can both succeed
Prosper is reaching out to a larger borrowing pool-with radio/tv ads, news promotions,etc.
But I am not so happy with all the ads they are test marketing
So for now I’m waiting- before I invest a new lump sum
Best of luck
May 5th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
vfund: I noticed my standing order has been grabbing more listings this year. I initially thought it was because of the widespread pessimism with the credit markets, however it might be because of the ads you say Prosper has been putting up recently?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
LendingStats
Bravo to you for the work you do-
Late Loans and the amount of them is all it takes to sour anyone on the great idea of Prosper-
And I think the perception of charging and or receiving a very unkind high interest rate-
Attracts borrowers who will take the money and run and lenders that aren’t keepers
We become no better functioning then today’s credit market
I think there should be more reasonable interest limits on the program-
Based on the usual credit criteria and a new investigative model- that rewards most people
And with the borrowers that do not meet the reward of decent rates-OK the rate has to be higher-But not a height that eventually becomes unmanagable to them- and the loan late or not paid
We need a new model-new criteria-and what is written by the borrower needs to be checked
Yes- you will still have people who will- not repay or pay late- no matter what interest rate they have
But having a more reasonable rate to begin with-and facts checked- I think ensures a better return
A return of borrowers and lenders
May 6th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
LendingStats — thanks for the great advice and taking the time to look at my loans. I’ll give it a shot..
May 6th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
westof8th: np, hope you get better results. :)
vfund: “And I think the perception of charging and or receiving a very unkind high interest rate-
Attracts borrowers who will take the money and run and lenders that aren’t keepers”
A way to somewhat avoid the borrowers who will ‘take the money and run’ would be to bid on smaller listings and to avoid lower graded borrowers. Just think about how you would execute your hit and run if you were a borrower. If you had a good credit score, you would try to maximize your gains by going for the largest loan possible.
Obviously this is all speculation on my part. However the data up to this point supports the theory that smaller loans default less. You can see this using either the Loans Funded page or the Historical Loan Performance page and customizing.
Compare:
$1000 - $12500 Loans, AA-C: Loan Performance and Loans Funded
$12501 - $25000 Loans, AA-C: Loan Performance and Loans Funded
Note how I filtered out the lower credit grades since the $ amount one can borrow drops as the credit grade drops. (You can see this from the Listing Overview page (look at avg. loan amount))
May 7th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Thank-you LendingStats
Starting with my bid today
I am following your advice
And for me -it will also be a kinder, safer way of doing business
Since I’ll be bidding on lower interest loans :)
May 7th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
vfund: np. Hope you do well :)
May 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
LendingStats:
I noticed that on the Total Loans Funded page, the projection/estimate on where the current month’s lending will come in is no longer active. In my brief scan of the full update list, I couldn’t find anything that suggested that this went away.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:36 am
Hey Mike,
Nice catch, this got broken in the last update. I just looked and corrected the problem.