Welcome to Lendermarket Stars, where we bring you the latest news and the greatest insights from industry enthusiasts and representatives. This time, we had the pleasure of having a discussion with Marco, an entrepreneur & investor, as well as a blogger. Let’s jump straight to the interview!
Hello Marco, welcome to the Lendermarket Stars series – it’s great to have you. For the ones that don’t know you, please, introduce yourself, and what it is that you do.
Thanks for having me! I am Marco Schwartz, an online entrepreneur & investor. I run several software companies, as well as a blog and a Youtube channel where I speak about my experience as an investor in passive income-generating assets, like Peer-to-Peer lending.
Tell us why you decided to start your YouTube journey. How has it been so far?
I started to create videos on Youtube about two years after I started to regularly invest money in P2P lending & dividend growth stocks. I wanted to share my experience as an investor beyond just text on my blog, and video is a great way to do that. So far it’s been a great experience – lots of amazing discussions with my audience started from my channel.
For how long have you been investing in P2P? What were your goals when you started?
I’ve been investing in P2P lending since 2015, so quite a while now. My goals were really to make the money coming from my business generate extra income for me, rather than just sitting in my bank account. I was looking for assets that were both completely passive and generated regular income with good yields, and P2P lending was one of those.
As an experienced investor you know that diversification is key when it comes to your portfolio, what does your P2P portfolio look like? And what’s your P2P investment allocation within your portfolio?
Definitely! My P2P portfolio is diversified on over 20 different platforms, about half in the consumer loans space and the other half in real estate projects. And in my global portfolio, P2P lending represents about 40% of the value of the portfolio, along with other investments like dividend growth stocks.
What are some recent trends in the investment world that you are following or keeping an eye on?
If we look at the P2P space solely, definitely regulation. It was a wild west in the P2P space when I first started investing, and that was not good. I follow the regulations coming into the space that will give better platforms and, therefore, better returns in the long term for investors.
In your opinion, what is the best way to reach your investment goals?
Many things come to mind – but if I had to pick just one, I would say define the amount of money you can easily set aside every month to be invested and be consistent with it month after month.
Initially, what factors attract your attention to a particular platform?
In terms of just attention, I guess the yield, of course, like all investors – but really what I look at is if the platform will be safe, so I look deeper at things like if the platform is regulated or has a license, the loan originators that the platform uses, and also its management team.
As a respected opinion leader in P2P, would you suggest your community try out Lendermarket?
Of course! What I like about Lendermarket the most is their focus on security and on the safety of the investors’ funds on the platform, which for me, is more important than anything on a P2P lending platform.
Our last guest left a question for you: What are the main 3 rules that you follow as an investor when managing your investment portfolio?
That’s a great question! Here are the main 3 rules I use:
- Only invest in assets that are generating income regularly, and therefore don’t invest in assets for pure speculative returns.
- Leave all the emotions out of the investments – that’s why I have a strict set of rules to select P2P lending platforms (yield, regulation, features …) and dividend growth stocks (yield, P/E ratio, payout ratio …), and I never deviate from them.
- Initially, spend your time picking the assets carefully, so once it’s set up, it can become a passive investment portfolio.
And last but not least, to continue with this chain, leave a question for our next interviewee to answer!
Have you observed any trends or changes in the P2P lending industry in recent years, and how have these impacted your investment strategy?
Do you want to start investing in P2P by yourself? Start right away!