Low interest rates meaning borrowers go with old-line lenders rather than peer-to-peer perhaps?
Or people easing up on consumer debt in general? (I kid)
I tried it out with $2,000 and all of my C or lower loans defaulted. Fortunately I went in cautiously with 2/3 either A or B but almost half of my B loans defaulted. So I lost a bunch and then it takes forever to get it out, I still got $750 in class A loans waiting to pull out.
I would recommend playing the stock market with Robinhood for free.
I tried it with $250, just to see how I’d do. Picked B-D (80% C, 10% B and 10% D) loans. I haven’t had a single default.
StG
Wow…that’s terrible luck! I put in $200/month for a few years and ended up putting in nearly $7000 (I stopped adding money a while back). I’ve had quite a few default but I’m up about $1500 overall so far. I keep thinking of getting my money out, but $7000 is a dinky bit of my investment portfolio. I’ve done all C’s and B’s with about 80% in the B category.
I quit reinvesting a while back - a much larger percentage of loans had been going bad than ever before, and I just wasn’t paying that much attention. Periodically I’ll withdraw the cash that accumulates.
And this morning there are a whopping three notes for all to invest in. Get’em while you can!
Well, after 7.5 years in Lending Club I think I am done. A few months ago I turned off automated investing and let my available cash accumulate. I now have the $1000 I originally invested in available cash which I am going to transfer back into my bank account this afternoon. After the transfer I will turn on automated investing again and leave my Lending Club account on autopilot.
I will check my LC account periodically but will not transfer any more funds into it. At the end of 2019 I will evaluate and decide if it makes sense to keep the account open. LC was an interesting experiment for me but this is no way to invest, IMO.
I gave up after my last post. Well, I had stopped transferring new money in but I was still reinvesting. I now transfer out $100/week. Within 2.5 years I should be out. I invested $7000 and am currently up a total of about $1700 over 7’ish years.
There were a few things that pushed me out:
- Very few notes to buy at times
- It became near impossible to sell notes on Folio without huge discounts
- A large amount of notes going into late status. That seems to have cleared up some.
The biggest reason is: I got bored of it. I wouldn’t ever put too much money into it and it isn’t a fun hobby 
Lending Club was my best-performing US investment last year at 11%, but I am down to $250 in there now from a high of over $17,000. I should be out completely in the next few months.
Update: Still transferring out $100 per week. I’ve now transferred out $3700 and have a balance of $4700 (total investment of $6650). At some point I’ll have to slow down the frequency of $100/week.
Apart from one note that is 90+ days late, so will be charged off, I am now out. For anyone who did not read or cannot remember my earlier posts, I started my exit because chargeoffs had rocketed, starting about 4 - 5 years ago. I used automated investing, and felt that either I was being left with the dregs, or the whole concept was failing.
I now have interesting numbers to back up the fall in returns. Each year 2011 - 2014 I would make an investment, and designate that to be a portfolio. Any interest was reinvested, with a separate portfolio for each year. I stopped in 2016. I only bought 3 year notes. The following shows the total return I got from each portfolio. Note, you cannot calculate annual returns from this as you start receiving your own capital back after one month, and some people pay off their loans early.
2011 lump sum 6.1%
2011 reinvestment 8.8%
2012 lump sum 13.0%
2012 reinvestment 14.3%
2013 lump sum 13.0%
2013 reinvestment 13.4%
2014 lump sum 7.8%
2014 reinvestment 5.1%
2015 reinvestment 5.0%
2016 reinvestment 2.7%
I got out simply by stopping reinvestment and transferring cash out. It therefore took three years. My goal was to be out before the next recession, when presumably chargeoffs will hit the roof. It could be I made it just in time.
I’m harvesting my cash periodically. I’m down to a total value of about 340 dollars (of which a hundred or so is in cash).
I too saw a massive increase in chargeoffs. I’ve been invested in a total of 314 loans, of which 33 are charged off. Another 1 is several months late and 2 more are 2+ weeks late.
Nominally I’ve still made a profit over the years, but the returns are definitely declining.
Interesting: they quit offering grades F and G notes a couple years ago - and about 6 weeks ago they quit offering E notes as well. I guess they were seeing huge numbers of defaults.
I’m almost out of the site. I’ve been listing everything I have. The two that are crazy late I’ve listed at a buck apiece (one just got picked up). I’m popping in every couple of days and “updating” the price to be the same as it was before. There are a couple that are in payment-processing right now, other than that I’ve just got 11 up for sale.
Goodness, it’s taking forever to dump these last few loans.
Since I last did a mass listing, I’m going in every day and “updating” the prices just to keep them current (I’m not actually changing the prices).
All but one are now a few cents less than the accrued principal and interest - and that, the price is just 2 cents more (so it’ll soon be less than the accrued value). I’m not surprised that the one that is 120 days late hasn’t been picked up despite the 80% discount, but the others surprise me.
Oh well, it’ll sort itself out; at some point the others will be enough of a bargain that someone will grab them. But overall it’s definitely harder to sell notes on the secondary market than it once was.
I’m down to about 50 dollars in outstanding loans. I’d been hoping to be rid of them by the end of last month, but maybe by the end of this one.
$4100 transferred out and $4300 balance left.
41 weeks down, 115 to go.
I have quite a few more than normal going into past due. 14 of 315 notes.
Down to 6 notes, total value just over 30 dollars. When the other 5 sell, I figure I’ll price that super-late one down to a dime and see if anyone will take the risk. Otherwise, there’s always the possibility that there will be recoveries in the future, meaning a taxable event. I’d like to be done with it this year.
I have now done a full year of once per week $100 withdrawals. Still have $3300 in the account and will have to slow the frequency once the payments no longer keep up with $100/week.
The amount of delinquent and charged off accounts still remains very high and I’m glad I decided to stop investing a year ago. For the supposed rip-roaring economy, it seems more people are not paying their debts.
I’m glad you posted - I’d gotten distracted and forgot to keep bumping my last few. 2 timed out without selling, and I’m down to 3 notes total. They’re all current, so I’ve just listed them for face value (principal + interest). Hopefully I’ll remember to keep bumping them, and they’ll sell.
Total account balance is down to about 300 bucks - so, not a large amount of money. Once these last 3 go, I’ll withdraw it all.
It just dawned on me, this whole thing started almost exactly 10 years ago (October 2009). It’s been an interesting trip and I don’t regret it, but I’m ready to be done.