Peer to Peer Lending - 2 year checkpoint

Prosper is Back! (We mean it this time)

Excerpt:

Finally… the moment we and so many supportive and loyal Prosper community members have been waiting for… after nine long months of navigating the rapidly changing regulatory landscape, we are thrilled to announce that Prosper’s registration statement with the SEC has been declared effective. Prosper lenders can once again invest directly in fellow Americans and small businesses!

Although this has been an excruciatingly long and frustrating process, especially considering that it has played out during the worst credit crisis in 70 years, this is a watershed moment. Prosper is the first Internet auction-based P2P loans marketplace and trading platform to have its SEC registration declared effective, which means the SEC is permitting Prosper to facilitate auctions in a way that has never been done before.

Comment: My experience (now 2 years into this):

• I've made money but not as much as I had hoped. But thus far it has beaten the returns of a 3 year CD.
  
• The stats:
  
  
  
  • 84 loans total (most for $ 50)
    
  • 17 have been paid in full
    
  • 3 defaulted (Grading: A, C, D). I was stupid to make the C and the D level loans!
    
  • 2 are in collections. One B and one AA.
    
  • 61 are current
    
  • Detailed stats available here.
    
  
  
• Contrasting my other investments (401K), I've done much better with Prosper.
  
• I'm still not ready to jump in deep with any real commitment of significant funds.
  
• My go forward policy is to reinvest returns in $ 25 chunks only in AA loans with an expected return of 5.5%.
  
• I don't expect to add new funds to the mix until the economy improves and I have great confidence in Peer to Peer Lending