Good day everyone. If you have read some of my posts already, you know that I always try to be as transparent as possible. I’m writing this post for exactly that reason. Once I make an investment decision I’ll try to put it up here. Let’s cut to the chase: I decided to completely stop with P2P Lending investing.
Reasons
The crisis that is currently going on in the world changed my perspective. Don’t get me wrong, P2P Lending can provide steady returns and I still believe it is profitable. What I don’t like right now is the status of the secondary market on Mintos and probably on other similar platforms. When times are normal these secondary markets have proven to be very liquid. In times of uncertainty, this turns out to be very different. A lot of people are trying to sell their investments on the secondary market at the moment because they are scared about what the current crisis could do to the P2P Lending space. This means that you can not easily return to cash when you would want to. There are 2 options; You sell your loans on the secondary markets with huge discounts or you wait until your loan is paid back by the lending company. This is also exactly the reason why I chose to only invest in short term loans.
When I started P2P Lending I actually knew something like this could happen. That being said, I didn’t expect to be so bothered by it. P2P Lending carries different risks. Not only your loan/lending company can default, but this could actually happen to the platform as well (Mintos in my case). I have decided that not being able to return to cash when I would want to is a no-go, certainly with the extra risks I’m taking in these investments.
The fact that I already have these feelings, even when I only had about €1000 invested, tied the knot for me.
Status
The highest worth of my P2P Lending portfolio was around €950. Right now I’m slowly liquidating all my investments. Every time I have around €200 of cash I’m transferring it to my bank account. At the moment I was already able to do that twice. This means that the exact amount that I still have on Mintos is €587.29. About €150 of this is cash (which means I will almost transfer again). This also means that the amount that is still invested in loans is around €400 at the moment.
As you can see, liquidating my portfolio goes relatively fast. The way I’m currently doing it is by selling loans on the secondary market with a slight discount. Of course I still get money from loans that are being paid back. At the moment I’m still up around €27.
Overview
For now, I have decided that P2P Lending has no place in my portfolio. I can’t say with 100% certainty that I will never come back though. I want to concentrate on my other investment first right now. Once my P2P Lending portfolio is completely liquidated I will give a final update about the total return/loss!
Thanks for reading this short article. If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate the leave a reply in the comments below!
