I’ve frequently stated that I need to overhaul my portfolio. Currently, I hold almost everything in aggressive stock funds or even pure stocks. While this strategy may be a bit reckless, I’m not fond of the idea of losing money to inflation when holding it in cash or bonds.
I was chatting with Write Your Own Reality (Mr. WYOR from this point on) about this topic recently. Mr. WYOR has a clever solution to my dilemma. It revolves around something that I like very much and that I’ve believed in for a long time; peer lending. I like Mr. WYOR’s solution so much that I plan to fully implement it before I retire. His solution will allow me to do two things:
- Emergency fund: If I run into a rough patch, I’ll be able to tap my peer lending account for 3 years of living expenses.
- Buy low, sell high: I want to be able to take advantage of different economic situations in retirement. For example, in times like now where market valuations are historically high, I don’t mind selling investments to fund my existence. However, the thought of selling the same investments in a bear market where valuations are below average is painful. In a low valuation environment, I’d rather live off cash or peer lending as you shall see.
Please welcome Mr. WYOR everyone!
Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
One of the harder decisions once you’ve retired or reached FI is determining the amount of cash one needs on hand. Why is this important? For many folks, funding retirement is a matter of withdrawing 3-4% of their portfolio balance each year to support their retirement lifestyle. By having some substantial cash on hand, you can better control your withdrawals and generally sell on your terms. Of course, figuring out how much of a cash buffer you might need in order to protect yourself is complicated. You want enough to have enough cash to be prepared to cover unexpected needs, but you don’t want so much that you’re forfeiting the amount of money you have working for you in the markets or elsewhere.
It is at this point P2P Lending (becoming more known as Marketplace Lending) can come into play. Imagine a scenario where you keep between 6-12 months worth of living expenses in cash. You continue to sell your investments as needed to maintain your liquidity, however, should the markets tank, you’ve built an extended cash provider that can turn into immediate cash on an on-going basis for three years. This provider is P2P Lending. Structured well, it can be the three-year job you don’t need to take when the markets struggle.
Mr. 1500 note: If you’re unfamiliar with P2P lending, please check out Mr. WYOR’s posts on Lending Club and Prosper.
Creating a Reserve Fund with P2P Lending
First, let’s look at the basic mechanics of Lending Club and Prosper notes and how one might structure this arrangement. With Lending Club and Prosper, you have two primary options, 36 and 60-month loans. While you tend to earn a premium for investing in five year notes, for someone looking to utilize this option for potential cash flow protection, sticking with the 36-month notes will be better. Why is this? With 36-month notes, you will receive payments of principle and interest approximately 50% higher than with 60-month notes.
For a $100,000 invested amount, this is over $1,000 per month of additional cash. This is we call a material difference in the world of accounting, but in your life, it can be even more significant. Just think about being in a situation where you are relying on the cash flow from your investments. Would $2,000 or $3,000 per month work out better for you? I’d imagine it would be the latter.
Great, so we’ve decided that for cash flow reasons 36-month notes are ideal. Now we have to look at risk tolerance and expected returns as this dictates both the sustainability and the downside should the economic climate change.
Risk, as with any investment, is important. Risk ultimately determines the premium one is paid for investing in a certain manner. Government bonds versus junk bonds. There can be more than a 10% difference in the yield almost solely due to risk. With peer to peer lending, risk takes a couple of forms, but the primary risk is whether or not the borrowers will default on their obligation. Below is a chart of returns and associated defaults of 36-month loans as provided by Nickel Steamroller, a third-party site that tracks P2P Lending statistics. Due to delays in the release of historic information by Lending Club, this information contains notes issued prior to September 30, 2014.
Note: All filtering and metrics are done with equally weighted loans. Unless you’re a big enough investor to purchase whole loans, you will be parsing out your investment with a fixed denomination. Skipping this presentation can alter your filtering research as large notes performance will disproportionately impact the overall return.
As you can see, while the return on investment (ROI) generally goes up as the loan grade gets lower, the default percentage increases tremendously. While we could get into some of the specifics of this, that would require a more detailed post that is ancillary to what we’re focused on today.
What we want to narrow in on is limiting the risk for a portfolio that is ultimately going to be your extended emergency fund. Instead of holding 2-3 years in cash, we are replacing most of that to earn a higher interest rate than a traditionally savings account, while being in a fairly controlled environment. As such, our focus will be on the highest two loan grades, A and B. These two have the lowest level of defaults and often these borrowers are truly prime candidates with excellent credit histories.
Without any filtering, all A and B loans have combined to earn a net of 6.49%, net of the transaction fees and 3.04% of defaults (image above). In order to properly leverage this methodology, one would want to further decrease the number of defaults as a hedge against a downturn in the economy. As an investor in the lowest-risk borrowers, you’ve already put yourself in a solid position as these will be the least likely folks to see an increase in defaults. However, an increase will occur, so minimizing your risk upfront, will allow you to weather any storm and preserve your capital.
Implementing just three simple filters, above and beyond the loan grade, will drastically change the default ratio, which should protect your investment should trouble strike. The three filters are:
- Loan Type: Credit Card Refinance and Debt Consolidation
- Inquiries Last Six Months: Zero
- Monthly Income: Greater than $5,500
Sure we could filter further and continually reduce the default rate and increase the projected return on investment; however, when maintaining a larger portfolio you have to worry about the ability to scale upwards. If your filter is too restrictive, finding notes in a timely fashion can and will be difficult. A great example of this is borrower income.
Borrower income is generally a solid indicator of future performance, with the higher the better. However, even just changing $500 per month going from $5,000 to $5,500 eliminated over 8,000 loans from the history. Increasing the monthly income requirement even further to $6,000 per month results in an additional 5,000 loans being eliminated from the loan history, or in other words almost 30% of the loans issued that fall under the above filters. I’ve picked the middle point as it generates more impact historically that going that one step higher while still allowing for a reasonable volume of notes.
With the aforementioned filters, we’ve taken our original projected return of 6.49% and increased it to 7.42%, while lowering the anticipated default rate of 3.04% to 1.75%. This is a decline of 42.4% in defaults, a substantial margin. You can see in the image below the historic returns as a result of the filtering. Also note the number of loans that meet this criteria, 37,039, versus that of the unfiltered results of 166,134.
Now is probably a good time to remind everyone that historic returns are not a guarantee of future results. Due diligence is a must with any investment, as is managing expectations.
So we understand the investment criteria and the term of notes, now what? Let’s make some base level of assumptions for the anticipated return and see how this impacts the potential cash flow at any given balance.
Kickin’ Cash Out Like a Boss
By maintaining your reserve cash in P2P Lending, you’ve created an opportunity for that money to continue to grow and build beyond what it might do sitting in a savings account. However, given the 3 year nature of the investment, you aren’t going to be able to pull out all of your cash immediately. While this might seem like a problem, a 36-month amortizing loan can provide a great amount of cash flow in a short period of time.
Each month, you receive payments that consist of both principal and interest. These payments, unless needed, can be reinvested, therefore compounding your money to offset inflation and provide long-term upside as cash needs increase. Should you need the cash, simply stop reinvesting and begin taking draws, as if you had a short-term pension.
With 36-month notes, an investor will receive approximately 35-37% of their invested balance per year at the point you stop reinvesting the cash. While this percentage will vary based on the average interest rate earned by your portfolio, this is pretty close to what you can expect given the parameters laid out above. With the historic return reflected above, you’d actually be above the 37% mark.
In the table below, you can see the projected annual cash flows for $100,000 invested, assuming that you need to pull out cash right when you hit that balance. I’ve shown three different return levels, all below the projected return based on our filtering below, with the lowest more than 3.0% lower. Defaults would need to triple to touch that level of return.
The second section in the above table shows your cash flow various periods of reinvestment prior to needed to stop and pull out cash. All are projected at a 6% return. As you can see, your cash flow increases quite substantially as you allow your reserves to continue to grow untouched. The final row is after ten years of investment without pulling out cash. At that point, you’ve nearly doubled your monthly cash flow protection provided by this kind of reserve fund.
Is This Right For You?
No, not necessarily. There is needs to be an understanding of the risks associated with this sort of investment. The most prevalent is if the rate of defaults soar, than principal loss is a possibility. While not likely to happen, one should be prepared for this scenario. Of course, it would take a tremendous increase in the default rate to see significant capital losses in a properly diversified account, and even so, your risk would be likely limited to a small fraction of your principal.
Big thank you for Mr. WYOR for guest posting here today. Mr. WYOR writes some pretty great stuff at Write Your Own Reality. I always learn a thing or two from his posts. Also find him on Twitter and facebook.
If you’d like to learn more about P2P lending, make sure you read his posts on Lending Club and Prosper.
Thanks again Mr. WYOR!
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writing2reality (aka Mr. WYOR) says
Thank you for the opportunity to post Mr. 1500!
For those who will ultimately have to deal with the challenge of selling investments to fund retirement, this can provide a way to maximize returns by staying more fully invested, yet provide an available flow of cash should they need it. A win/win in my book.
Be happy to answer any questions if people have them.
writing2reality (aka Mr. WYOR) recently posted…Passive Income Made Perfect – January ’15 PIMP Update
Gen Y Finance Guy says
Great post Mr. WYOR!
I think the big take aways here are the following:
1) Manage your risk at order entry. Using filters to set parameters on loans you are willing to commit capital too.
2) Stay small on loan to loan basis. This allows you to spread the risk around.
3) Increase your # of occurrences. The only way you get anything close to the historical performance with respect to returns and default rates is to invest in as many loans as possible. This is how probabilities work, you need a big enough sample size.
4) Choose the right duration. You want to make sure you choose the right duration given your own unique needs.
Cheers!
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writing2reality says
GYFG – Glad you liked the post. You’ve identified some valid takeaways. Ultimately it is about managing risk to achieve a relatively narrow return expectation. While there will be peaks and valleys throughout the years with defaults, minimizing the variance through the diversification across notes can achieve a pretty nice result.
writing2reality recently posted…Passive Income Made Perfect – January ’15 PIMP Update
Lucas says
Thanks for the timely post. I was just in the process of figuring out my strategy with a “taxible emergency fund” i am now building, and P2P lending had emerged as one of the better options (partly due to the apparently overpriced stock market). I know there is a secondary market for loans that you can unload them if needed, but I really liked the calculations and perspective of using 36mo loans and establishing enough of a balance to sustain all expenses for 3 years (to avoid having to sell early). I guess one could also use 60 month term loans and try to establish a 5 year cushion. Anyway thanks for taking the time to share your research and analysis!
writing2reality says
Lucas, you could certainly look at 5-year notes for this as well, but understand that the monthly cash flow is significantly less as a result. That particular strategy would require a much larger investment to achieve the cash flow required for five years. As for unloading loans, this strategy does not rely on that as an option, although it is entirely possible to accelerate the cash if needed by selling.
writing2reality recently posted…Passive Income Made Perfect – January ’15 PIMP Update
Fervent Finance says
I think this is a great tool for someone nearing their early retirement, and into their retirement years. Currently as I am young, and my retirement date is still at least 10+ years away, so I’d rather leave my nut in the broader stock market to try and outpace these returns over that time. But you raise valid points about this enabling you to not having to sell your investments in a downturn in the market to fund your early retirement expenses. These returns will definitely outpace any money market fund you would be holding your short-term cash needs in (with more risk of course).
Fervent Finance recently posted…Keeping up with the Joneses
writing2reality says
Definitely a great tool. I would agree with you that it isn’t for everyone, especially those with many years till they retire, however, I think some P2P exposure doesn’t hurt even us younger folks.
The key here is that you can reduce your emergency funds because you have access to a stream of capital. Say you’re 50% of the way to FI and your minimum expenses are $1000 above and beyond your current passive income. With a bit over $30,000 in P2P lending, you’ve bought yourself coverage while drawing down on those resources and without having those funds in liquid savings.
writing2reality recently posted…Passive Income Made Perfect – January ’15 PIMP Update
Fervent Finance says
Very valid point. Thanks.
Fervent Finance recently posted…Keeping up with the Joneses
EurFI says
Really an interesting approach. Thanks for the article.
I have always shyed away from P2P lending, maybe I have to change that…
EurFI recently posted…January 2015 – networth and expenses
writing2reality says
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions as you look into P2P lending, happy to answer them.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
Chris @ Flipping A Dollar says
This is really interesting. I love the idea of diversifying AND setting yourself up to make a smart financial move in the future!
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writing2reality says
Chris, you’ve nailed it. Not only do you give yourself some fixed income exposure, but you put yourself into a great position should your short term cash needs outweigh the lack of desire to sell based on a down market.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
Norm says
I love this strategy. I’ve been using Lending Club successfully for over three years and I see it being a reliable income source in our eventual retirement. It’s very easy once you find your sweet spot in the filtering.
I wonder what you would consider an appropriate percentage of LC notes in your asset allocation. At least when I signed up, they made you promise to make Lending Club loans less than 10% of your total portfolio. Right now we are at 6 or 7%, but eventually I want to be at 10%.
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writing2reality says
I agree with you Norm, once things are automated and the ‘sweet spot’ is hit, there isn’t much else left to do.
Really depends on the individual investor, but I think the 10% range is a pretty good guide, but am not opposed to higher. I will say there are more factors in place than just a straight percentage of assets. You’ve also will need to consider the overall risk of your investment strategy. The higher the risk, the lower the percentage, and vice versa.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
Tawcan says
Great post and it sounds like an excellent strategy. As far as I know we don’t have P2P leaning companies here in Canada so can’t utilize this strategy. 🙁
Tawcan recently posted…Dividend Income Update – January 2015
writing2reality says
Tawcan, I’d imagine that at some point P2P lending will invade you and the rest of our friends to the north. The combination of technology and lending is certainly changing the way unsecured borrowing happens in the world today.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
ILG says
Thanks for the informative post! I have pondered using P2P lending and think that having another income stream type will help me reduce the risk as I move towards retirement.
What service do you recommend for better note availability?
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writing2reality says
ILG, the more income streams the better in my opinion. Many dividend growth investors talk about the advantage of spreading their investment over 30, 40, or even 50 companies to provide protection against a dividend cut or cancellation. I believe in taking that a step further and expanding to different types of income above and beyond that in equities. This is one of those types, and something I believe in long-term.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
Adam @ AdamChudy.com says
Great post. Definitely a strategy I haven’t looked at before. Posts like these are why I keep up with all the blogs. I’ll be adding some P2P to my portfolio soon.
Adam @ AdamChudy.com recently posted…This is why you save
writing2reality says
Awesome to hear you expanding to P2P lending Adam. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them and share my thoughts/research.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
Elroy says
Sorry, I’m a bit daft. In your table you have 6% return, $100k invested an annual cash flow of ~$36k? How does that work? It seems with a $100k invested and a 6% return, you should have ~$6k annual cash flow.
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Gen Y Finance Guy says
Elroy, the $36K also includes your return of Capital as well.
Gen Y Finance Guy recently posted…Buy Into Weakness – Investment Rule #1
writing2reality says
GYFY is correct. Since these are three-year fully amortized loans, your cash flow consists of interest and principal portions, much like a mortgage would.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
Elroy says
Got it. thanks! So, what’s so exciting about 6-10% annual return?
I’m still not convinced P2P is in line with the risk/reward spread the market offers. But that is ok. Looks like it is working out well for you.
Elroy recently posted…Painting MDF edges without it looking fuzzy
writing2reality says
The proposed idea is on that can potentially replace some of the traditional fixed income investments that might be a part of your overall asset allocation and reduces the amount of liquid cash you’ll have on hand languishing in this <1% return environment.
Seems to be some pretty decent reasons there, but it is certainly something that isn't for everyone.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
1500 says
It’s an alternative to bonds for me. I’ll put 10% here instead of 10% in bonds.
Dave Weidner says
Hello — I understand the cash flow table above, and I understand capital reinvestment.
I am able to roughly reproduce the cash flow results for one year using $100K initial investment with the PMT() function in Excel. I used: =PMT(.06/12, 36, 100000). Then added the payment result to the next month’s balance.
However, my balance in the spreadsheet starts to grow geometrically beyond one year compared to your table.
Can you explain your calculations for 3-5-10 year of investment without pulling out cash?
Thanks for a great article!
fdscott says
Use this calculaor: http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/savings-withdrawal-calculator-tool.aspx
with 100,000, 3yrs, 6%, $3042 Periodic withdrawal.
Graphic of it: http://i.imgur.com/fbvYvJh.png
Dave Weidner says
Thanks for the link.
It actually works out to be a bit more than this calculator shows because it does not take reinvested capital into account, only compounded interest.
The $119.7K for 3 years with no withdrawals would be more like $122.5K, by my calculations.
writing2reality says
Dave, I used a program called TValue5, which is a software that can do loan amortization and investment returns calculations. My inputs are follows:
Initial Balance: $100,000 on 1/1/2015
Monthly compounded interest rate of 6%
Ending balance at 12/31/2017: $119,660
Even if you used a daily compounding rate, you’d end up with $119,720. I’m not sure where your $122,500 comes from.
As for the reinvested capital, using a simple compounding calculator assumes that the dollars are always 100% invested, therefore you won’t see anything higher than the daily compounded amount of $119.7k. The fact that you receive payments with both interest and principal has no real effect on the calculation based on the underlying assumptions of the return calculation.
writing2reality recently posted…Using P2P Lending to Protect Against Short-Term Cash Needs
fdscott says
This calculator gives you the monthly breakdown. It comes up with 119037.94
http://www.calculator.net/amortization-calculator.html?cloanamount=100000&cloanterm=3&cinterestrate=6&printit=0&x=45&y=14
Dividend Growth Journey says
Great post from WYOR. I want to start P2P sometime soon and posts like this give wealth of information. Thanks.
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Roy F Howard III says
Very encouraging information without the fluff. Thank you.
CharlesMakesCents says
Hey W2R,
Just found a link to this post from your site–pretty interesting! Coincidentally, we just signed up to open an account on LC, and while I don’t plan on using it as a source of emergency cash, it’s certainly an interesting idea.
Maybe I’ll give it a year or so and see how it goes! The idea of reducing the size of an ’emergency fund’ and increasing monthly cash flow in an investment account to one that can support you if necessary is an interesting one.
Keep on saving,
Charles
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