Linkfest 2: The Search For More Money

Right after buying linkfest the t-shirt and linkfest the flame thrower, check out the latest from around the web (and if you have no clue what I'm referring too, catch up on your Mel Brooks movies):

Hyve Up has done a video interview with Chris Larsen. My translation of CEO speak: "Banks are the man. Damn the man! We're taking him down." Nothing about saving the Empire, though.

zcommodore has been on a posting streak:

• Uh, oh. Loan counts going down.
• Prosper is really, REALLY testing my patience
• Autofund, inquiries the biggest red flags
  

Tom at Prosper Lending Review has gone to that other place. Good deal for him, but reduced posts on Prosper for the rest of us.

I'm happy to announce I have joined the blogging team at Lending Club. Read my first post here

EasyProsperTips looks at keywords in funded loans:

I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the word choice in the Description of funded vs. non-funded listings to see if there is anything significant. It could possibly reveal trigger words that appeal to lenders (or repulse them). To obtain this word ranking, I queried all the completed and expired listings from 2/1/06 to 11/2/07 and counted the number of times each word appears. Words that were less than 5 characters were filtered out so that we can see some more interesting results.

Consumerist has their take on Prosper. The comments were especially entertaining to read:

I have been lending on Prosper for about a year. I have closed on 146 loans, and 5 are late at this time.

If you don't have any common sense, then you can lose a lot of money. That being said, I have made more than 10% over the past year, and as lenders scrutinize the borrowers a bit more it is getting tougher for loans to get filled, therefore lower default rates.

You have to be willing to sift through a lot of crap - and mix up your portfolio with some AA, A, and B credit ratings borrowers to diversify.

But, this has proven to be a great place to keep my housing fund until the housing market returns to some semblance of reality - in about 3 years, which is the length of these loans!

I'd buy the paper if mine was as entertaining as the Sydney Morning Herald:

IT IS like eBay for money.

If you're near a computer, and have got the fidgets, try punching www.prosper.com into your browser.

You will see a lot of Americans asking for money. No, it is not a chatroom for e-beggars. Nor a system of cyber-busking, with tech wizards wheeling out tricks in exchange for electronic shrapnel.