This is quite a bit of fun for me today. I’m going to look beyond peer-to-peer lending to my old, very well-trodden stomping ground of shares and savings, where I spent nearly 20 years of my life before peer-to-peer lending took over. If you want…
A property IFISA is a tax-free investment account where you can lend to borrowers who have real property – real estate – to back up those loans. This piece is based on a vast amount of research over many years. I could have easily made…
I’m going to explain some of the strengths and limitations of reserve funds. Then I’m going to write about three simple steps you can take to give yourself the level of safety you probably want and have expected all along, to get yourself prepared for…
I have always invested in investments that are relatively easy to analyse, so that I have a good chance of being able to weigh up the risk-reward balance properly, and invest with a large margin of safety. The types of investments I choose also need…
From our point of view, it was never a good start for Lendy, formerly called Saving Stream. Since the beginning, it never passed the basic, simple tests cited in principles one and three of 4thWay’s 10 P2P Investing Principles. In short, Lendy hasn’t provided enough…
We have some rare information about CrowdProperty‘s performance and it looks like it is finally opening up, allowing a wee bit of analysis of some the risks. This is great for me, because I’ve suspected that this is one of the rare P2P lending sites…
ArchOver* is now the latest established P2P lending site to introduce auto-lend combined with auto-diversification. The ArchOver Investment Plan, as it is called, does three very useful things, the third is about the type of diversification on offer, which is a feature that deserves expanding on….
Many Tesla bond investors are complete lunatics. Today, I read on CNN that Tesla bonds have fallen in price so much that anyone buying its bonds due for repayment in 2025 will now effectively earn 8.6% annual interest. (A falling price for selling your bonds…
Proplend has launched an auto-lend feature for its “tranche A” property loans, whether you lend through its regular account or its IFISA. Proplend’s tranche A loans are for a maximum of 50% of the property’s valuation. Many loans are against properties that are earning income for…
As of today – the day we upgraded our ratings system – a new entrant to 4thWay’s PLUS Ratings is LendingCrowd. LendingCrowd* has completed over £34 million since 2014 in business loans and it offers an early exit if you are able to sell your…
Just for a bit of quick background on HNW Lending, it does short-term property loans and development loans, as well as asset-backed loans (see info box), to individual borrowers who are rich in assets and property. It pays around 6% to 10% interest. There have…
You probably think a better question is “Why on Earth would I want to do unsecured business lending when I can do secured lending? It’s a good question. Secured business lending, after all, means that you are lending to a business that has property, equipment,…
As peer-to-peer lending website Assetz Capital’s loans have matured (got closer to their final repayment dates or been fully repaid by borrowers) we can now see better how they perform in terms of bad debt. In addition, the mix of different types of loans offered…
Taking a hard, cold look at that jumble of ideas, desires and fears we have in our own noggins should not be an afterthought, and reading about investor psychology not just something to do one idle evening in an armchair after we’ve already got our…
A long question from 4thWay reader Pete Harper about Funding Circle. Pete Harper, 4thWay user: How do you all feel about Funding Circle and their bad debts these days? I decided about 6 months ago to pull out of FC because of what seemed…
Development loans offer attractive interest rates of 8% or more, secured on land and property, so they are appealing to lenders. Most property P2P lending websites focus on development loans more than other kinds of property loans. (See sidebox, right, to find out what development…
Prime personal loans P2P lending site Lending Works* is one of a smaller number of P2P lending sites that uses insurance to protect lenders from specific situations. What the insurance does for lenders Lending Works’ insurance could pay out if and when a borrower is unable…
Not enough time to read this 4,000 word report? See the simple, plain English summary here. In this report: The Guardian says: RateSetter was hit by £80m of problem loans. Is that true? Significant mistakes admitted by RateSetter. The risks and rewards at RateSetter have…
There are very few P2P lending sites that have given me the feeling of 100% honesty and openness that we at 4thWay also aim for, but I certainly feel that from CapitalStackers. Jumping through hoops For a P2P lending site to get listed on 4thWay,…
In a recent article, one of his first for 4thWay, freelance investment journalist Cliff D’Arcy suggested the maximum amount that any of us should lend through P2P is 5% or at most 10% of our wealth. Susan, a 4thWay reader, told me on the phone…
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