Free $25 From LendingClub Promo

 

There is a new LendingClub Promo where you can get $25 when signing up as an investor (lender). If you are new to the whole Person-2-Person investing, check out my latest Lending Club post for more info.

The $25 Lending Club bonus will be deposited in your account after you have created a new investor account, link a bank account and make a deposit into your Lending Club account. There is no expiration date on this LendingClub bonus, which means this could end at any time.

I need to refer you for you to qualify for the $25 bonus. If you are interested, please complete the form below and I will generate a referral for you to your email. (Please give this some time as I need to generate this manaully for you.)

1. Send a $25 LendingClub Referral To:
2. Your Email Address:(valid email required)

 

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(Don’t worry, your email address is safe with us. We will delete it as soon as the referral is generated. We never have and never will send out spam to you!) 

I have had a good experience with LendingClub. I wish I could say the same thing for Prosper.com since I am now moving everything from Prosper to LendingClub. P2P lending is a unique way to spread out your investments as well as helping out someone in need

If you are looking for another way to invest your money and get $25 along with it, why not try it out.

$50 Bank of America Promo For New Checking Account

Bank of America has a new promo going where you can get $50 for signing up for a new My Access Checking Account.

To get the bonus do the following:

• follow this link and open an MyAccess Checking Account
• enter the bonus code GROUP
• deposit at least $25 into the account within 30 days of account opening

You will receive your $50 credit to your new account within 90 days of opening your new personal checking account online. Note that there is a limit on one $50 incentive per household every 6 months. This offer only applies for new MyAccess Checking accounts. This offer expires on 12/31/2009

401k Rollver Question

Here is a question I was asked from a reader earlier this month:

“I have a quick question and wanted to see if you could provide some help. I was just laid off from my job. I have around $120,000 in my 401k at that employer. Does it make sense to move it somewhere else or just leave it?

Thanks – Dave”

Well Dave, here is what I would do. I would move it to an IRA so you can keep an eye on it. The reason I say this was I was laid off from an employer as well. I left my 401k with them. Six months later they filed for bankrupcy. My 401k got locked up in the bankrupcy and I couldn’t even get in to change my funds.

I bet you can imagine how important it is to have access to that account during a declining economy. Moving your 401k to an IRA will allow you to have full access to it with fees in most cases.

Here is a site that helps explain your options for completing a 401k rollover. It’s not as difficult as it sounds, but knowing your options is important. I suggest you check it out.

My Solution to the Housing Crisis – 4% Mortgages

After spending quite a bit of time being disgusted with the outflow of money to banks to cover short / bad mortgages, I was thinking why not take a different approach to this. Have the government offer 4% mortgages. They could borrow the money using Treasury bills at 3% and in turn offer a 4% interest rate to everyone. Think about how this could stimulate the economy…

An outstanding mortgage of $150,000 at 6.5% has a payment of $948. If you refinance that same $150,000 at 4% you get a payment of $716. That is a $232 savings per month. Which would give people a little more spending power.

The best part of this is all the banks accepting bailout money wouldn’t need it anymore. All their mortgages would be paid off by government backed mortgages, so they can do whatever they want with it, since they obviously can’t manage their money now.

The mortgage interest dedecution would be lower since mortages at 4% are earning less interest than higher rates, so this would actaully increase tax revenue at the IRS.

Ok, yes I oversimplified this, but if you could put rules and requirements around who could qualify for a 4% mortgage doesn’t this start to make sense? Sure the big banks would never let this fly since they would lose a large chunk of their mortgage, but who cares, they are the reason we are in this mess, so I say tough! Maybe one year bank execs would actually not receive a bonus!

On a related topic, I was reading that a high percentage of mortgages that were in foreclosure were due to the buyer not having at least 20% down. So my question is, what happened to PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance)? Last time I checked PMI was required if you were going to have less than 20% down. Wasn’t the whole point of PMI to insure the buyer against not being able to pay the mortgage? I’d love to know where all that PMI money went, since I don’t think it actually made it into an insurance policy. I am sure that is another scandal waiting to show its ugly head.

Ok, so I am down ranting, but I just ask again, aren’t their simplier ways to solve these issues rather than giving billions to corporations just to find out later they spent it on spa getaways? I’m still waiting for my bailout money. Oh wait, I am not getting any!

P2P Lending – Switching from Prosper to Lending Club

After logging into my Prosper.com account for the first time in a while, I was shocked to see how bad all my loans are performing. I went from 1 charge off to 9 in about 4 months along with 6 late loans.

I am now in the red and most likely will lose even more then the $62.74 I have lost thus far. I was an early investor in Prosper when they opened in 2006, so you can see that I would have been better putting my money in a savings account.

A few months ago, after reading some comments from my previous prosper posts, I decided to give LendingClub a try. LendingClub works the same as prosper but touts stricter underwriting guidelines to help weed out those unsavory borrowers.

I set up an account and funded 8 loans. I did 2 loans with an A credit rating, 4 with a B credit rating and 2 with a C credit rating. After watching these loans over the past few months, I have been surprised that they are all current, even through this current recession. Two of those loans have been paid off completely. My average rate of return is 9.75%. This is pretty good considering the current savings rates out there.

Since this has been a successful test I have decided as I receive payments from my Prosper loans that money is going directly into a new LendingClub loan. I have not funded a new Prosper loan since May last year, so I am hoping LendingClub can help make up for my losses at Prosper. I still feel that person to person lending is a great way to invest and that the company that can get a handle on bad borrowers will ultimately win the prize. Right now, I am pretty sure that Prosper isn’t the one!