Prosper Update
August 31st, 2009Ok… after a great summer with lots of fishing and camping, I am finally updating status of prosper to live. I know I’m clearly behind on their reopening but I have kept my eye on their progress the past few months. After watching a commercial today on CNBC promoting their newly reopenend site, I decided its time to update this site.
Personally, I’ve always felt prosper was an investors haven. Their rates are considerably higher than the competition leading to better returns. However, if you’re a borrower, look out! I’ve invested with prosper with great success and have tried their borrowing side. Borrowing was a disaster. First of all their credit scoring is a mystery. The past two reports prosper pulled gave me a D score and an AA score with no change on my experian credit report. The AA Score allowed me to borrow at a great 5.89% which is slightly higher than my credit union. However, with the D score I received the first attempt, I was looking at a rate of 19.99% which I would not even attempt a test run with.
The site is once again friendly and easy to use for both investors and borrowers. My suggestion with the re-release of prosper to borrowers is to keep trying a new credit pull each month (THEY DO NOT MAKE HARD HITS ON YOUR CREDIT REPORT. THIS WILL NOT AFFECT YOUR CREDIT SCORE). If you are shocked by a low credit rating, don’t attempt to receive a loan with a high interest rate. Peer lending is a fun new innovation, but be smart and don’t get stuck with an interst rate higher than your local banks. Try again next month and see if your credit rating jumps like mine did from D- AA. I can’t explain the difference but can tell you the difference between 19.99 to 5.89 was considerable.
Welcome back prosper!
