In a recent blogpost James Gardner argues that FYGO may have an advantage over Prosper in P2P lending because with FYGO, you are either borrowing from someone you know directly, or who they know directly.
While it might be true that at FYGO the defaults will be lower than at Prosper, I do not think you can compare both approaches directly. They have different target audiences and are essentially different markets with very different conditions
If you have not seen it yet – check this new washington post article on prosper. Funny headline is "Want to Loan Me Money? Here's a Picture of My Dog."
I am the Group Leader of Virtual Lending Group and recently received an email from Kori, one of my Group Members that I would like to share. Kori is a young lady who came to Prosper for an auto loan because she had no credit history and was having difficulty obtaining a loan through conventional lending institutions. She needed a vehicle in order to pursue her career teaching baton classes at different schools:
Kori’s Email:
Hey, How are things going?!?! Everything is FINALLY falling into place for me. The after school coordinator and the budget advisor have approved my classes, now I am getting finger printed. The board signs my paperwork on Feb 13th and then I am starting a 17 week program at $600 a week. I am going to be making $40 an hr, 3 different schools a day, and five days a week. The contract is for $10,200 for only 4 months of work!!! I am so excited! My boyfriend has his business up and it is growing as well. We are planning on using Prosper in 6 months to a year for loan to purchase a home. I’m only 20 right now, by the time I am 21 in June things will be looking so much better!!! I am also competing in 2008 in the Baton Twirling World Championships. I will keep you informed on everything that is happening! Thanks you for the help. The car loan really has kick started my entire life! It is insane! TTYL!
Kori
Wow! hard to believe Prosper will be 1 year old in a few days. It has been such a great opportunity to both borrowers and lenders to navigate through the first public 365 days.
As the group leader for NuBeginnings I’ve seen the group trends change just about every three months. You had your groups who came in and brought in many borrowers, groups consisting of only friends and groups who focused on niche borrowers.
As for NuBeginnings from May 3,2006 to today we have 309 members. How did I get that many members? Through word of mouth, basically I have lenders who believe and support NuBeginnings. I also ask for referrals from a borrower once they’ve funded.
Loan count from Nubeginnings is 55 with over $450,000.00 in closed loans. Two loans are pending verification and 1 is on a bid down. Bid downs are amazing and a rampant comment I’ve seen on the forums is “How low will it go”
The forums on Prosper have evolved I try to stay away from the RLM, love reading the lenders forum and along the way I have found I miss some of the original posters. They were lenders so were very active. Hope to see them back.
A new forum has popped up and I love the format prospers.org like wiseclerks site, was built and is monitoered by a prosper member. There are many great minds amongst Prosper members, and I am constanty learning new things. Love it!
Wiseclerks site is full of stats and information for lenders, and now I think it’s great he’s offering this news site.
So while I hope that Prosper members see this I hope we have new visitors because of this site.
I will continue to add new loans for lenders and have my sights on a new dollar goal this year. My leads are starting come in from some feelers I put out, so I’m looking to put up solid loans.
Bev
Wiseclerk, one of the leading third party sites on prosper now offers group leaders the opportunity to publish articles. Group leaders may post on any prosper related topic they choose. All posts are categorized to the group they belong to, making it easy to find all previous posts for a group. See the FAQ for more information.