2008 Stimulus Check $600

Well for some the stimulus check is going to buy that new plasma tv or pay down those credit card bills. I have a week or so before mine hits my bank account and have been trying to find a place to put it. I will be investing it somewhere other than Prosper. I have reached a personal milestone on Prosper.com and will stop all additional fund transfers to the online lending platform. I am now receiving over $100 a month from my loans and its become self sufficient as far as funds go. I will still log in weekly to check balances and make new bids with available funds from interest and principle payments. So what to do with my new $600 windfall. I have recently started to pump up my TDAmeritrade for a stock purchase. I have thought about using the $600 to buy a few more shares but with the market the way it is... I have been buying shares of MVIS steadily for the past year. The price has been somewhat of a roller coaster. The company is developing a small pico projector that will be installed in cell phones and will allow beam of light to project whatever is on your cell phone screen to a wall or any other solid surface. This is a good idea for people that have trouble seeing the screen. They make the screens so small these days. The shares run between $2-4 depending on the month. They are a well known company in the military field and offer many other applications for their technology's. I feel they have a great future and will offer a great return on my $600!

Recent Site update at Prosper.com

Nationwide lending at 36% interest rate capAfter a couple years of turning away Nevadans completely and forcing Pennsylvanians to set their interest rates below 6%, prosper.com is opening up the marketplace to borrowers in almost every state of the union, with a marketplace-wide rate cap of 36%

Minimum instant transfer amount lowered to $50For lenders who install Prosper’s Facebook application, prosper lowered the minimum transfer requirement from $500 to $50. Additionally, the maximum instant transfer amount has been raised to 50% of your active loan value.What this means is that with as little as $100 in active loans, you can instant transfer $50 to Prosper for that “must have” loan that you just came across. Prosper’s Facebook application keeps your Facebook friends updated on your Prosper lending activity, and is a great way to share Prosper with your friends and family.

Second loan criteria updatedThe requirements for borrowers who wish to take a second loan on Prosper have changed. The new rules for whether a borrower is eligible for a second loan are dependent on the borrower’s credit grade, and the factors taken into consideration include time since last loan originated, consecutive months of on-time payments, and whether the borrower’s credit grade has dropped or not.See the full list of eligibility requirements.

Lender servicing fee for AA changed to 1% per annum. The lender annual servicing fee for AA borrowers has changed to 1%. Listings created on or after April 15 will be subject to this new servicing fee. Learn more about fees and charges.

Listing durations standardized at 7 daysAlong with some other changes to the listing creation process, prosper has fixed the duration of all new listings to 7 days. This change is part of a larger effort to simplify the listing creating process, and help more borrowers create fundable listings.

Your tax forms are right here. If you are a lender who owned loans in 2007 or earlier, and are eligible to receive a Consolidated Form 1099 from Prosper, your 1099 is available from the “My Account > Statements” page. Learn more about tax reporting. There are many other changes under the covers, and some not so under the covers.

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Blind Lending

Recently I created a portfolio plan of my own. I set the limit at $500 and $50 per loan. So I set the specs on credit history that were important to me and felt gavce me a edge. To my surprise its been over a month and I still have to find one more loan that meets the criteria. Now keep in mind Prosper.com actually does the looking for me. Once a loan that meets my criteria is posted on the website prosper on my behalf places a bid at the rate I have predetermined for that credit grade the loan falls in. So far I have been happy with the loans it has chosen but its been a slow process since there arent many that meet the criteria that I have set. I have targetted mostly the C and D credit grades becuase the life long default rate on prosper.com seems to be about the same as AA and A credit crades but offer more percentage points in return. When this plan is complete I am placing another $500 on AA and A only just to keep a more stable portfolio just in case the numbers are off. I currently have 1 four month past due loan and 3 one month past due loans in my portfolio. They are all in the hands of Amsher who is the collection agency that took penncos spot. They inherited penncos' loans so their histoy doesnt look great just yet but the other agencys collection rate is horrible. Two of my late loans are AA and homeowners. How hard could it be to collect here... Theres alot of new lenders and more arrive everyday with dreams of 20%+ returns only to get burned. I am currently in the top 7000 lenders and one of only a few htat migrated from the original forums. The forums have been so moderated lately that its hard to keep up, posts get buried before they are read because every post is now moderated. Great stuff if its not the weekend apparently Prosper.com doesnt think we will use the forums on Sundays...lol

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