P2P & Dividend Income October (Why I Added EstateGuru!)

Welcome to my 24th monthly income update! I can’t believe that it has been two entire years already.

This time, we’ll not only be looking at the performance of my investments in P2P lending and the dividends I received in October 2020, but also discuss why I decided to add EstateGuru to my portfolio!

P2P Lending Income – October 2020 Overview

Platform	Income	IRR	Invested	Value
Iuvo Group	25,74€	13,54%	1.857€	2.721€
Mintos	94,69€	12,82%	8.437€	10.151€
Bondora G&G	17,60€	6,68%	2.901€	3.183€
Crowdestor	27,67€	9,12%	6.200€	6.823€
Viainvest	25,71€	12,17%	2.500€	2.743€
Lendermarket	44,16€	13,72%	3.000€	3.365€
EvoEstate	0€	0,70%	730€	733€
EstateGuru	1,5€	6,41%	500€	502€
Mintos I&A	0,61€	10,45%	96€	199€
Total	238,09€		26.221€	30.470€*

*includes 110€ profit from Swaper (exited) and 60€ exit fee on Wisefund

Platform	Invested	Value
Envestio	2.807€	?*
Monethera	1.028€	?*
Grupeer	2.825€	?*
Total	6.660€	TBD*

*Counted as a loss for now, I’m hoping to recover some funds. See links for details.

Dividends Are Back!

Luckily, P2P Lending wasn’t the only investment income I received in October. My wife and I also received 225,35€ in dividends from our main ETF, the Vanguard FTSE All-World. The ETF distributes dividends every three months.

First off, the market value of ETFs is volatile, meaning it can go up or down, so dividends are not “free bonus money”.

And in many countries, it can be more tax-efficient to buy an accumulating ETF – an ETF that reinvests dividends into the fund right away instead of distributing them to investors.

That being said, I’m confident that our globally diversified ETFs average dividend yield of 2% per year is a safe amount I could spend and not reinvest if needed, without worrying that I’m reducing the value of my ETFs over the long run.

It’s far below the 4% “safe withdrawal rate” that is often mentioned in the financial independence community.

That is why I’m personally including the ETF distributions as income. It also certainly doesn’t hurt that seeing this number grow over time motivates me to keep investing!

Taking that into account, let’s have a look at what my total monthly investment income looked like.

My Monthly Income (Total)

Total Investment Income (Oct. 2020): 463,44€ (+213,66€)

So while my income from P2P lending was 11,69€ lower than the month before, October still ended up being my second best month ever regarding my total income from investments.

Over the last 8 months, I earned a total of 2.904,48€ from my investments in P2P lending and from dividends via my ETFs.

That translates to 363,06€ per month on average, not bad at all!

With this average, I’m at 24,20% of my monthly ‘passive’ income goal, which is 1.500€/month.

Alright, let’s have a look at all my P2P platforms individually, including my latest addition.

Iuvo Group

Income (Oct. 2020): 25,74€ (+0,93€)
IRR: 13,54%
Invested since: 05.10.2018

There are no major news regarding Iuvo Group in October, other than the platform improving its refer-a-friend program conditions for a limited time, until November 30th. More details here.

Mintos

Income (Oct. 2020): 94,69€ (+8,76€)
IRR: 12,82%
Invested since: 27.09.2018

I’m happy to see that the situation on Mintos improved for the second month in a row, as my funds in recovery decreased further, by 89,59€ compared to the month before. Even my pending payments were lower on average.

Mintos introduced a much improved risk scoring model in the end of October, which was a welcome change in my opinion.

What is more, Mintos started crowdfunding via Crowdcube. Follow this link if you’re interested in actually acquiring a small ownership of Mintos as a company.

I have no experience in start-up investing, so while it might be a great opportunity in the long run (only time will tell), I think I’ll stick to ETFs as far as my stock investments are concerned.

My Mintos Auto Invest Strategy

Bondora Go & Grow

bondora go and grow returns october 2020 — Note: I invested an extra 7.000€ for less than a month on Go & Grow during Sep/18

Income (Oct. 2020): 17,60€ (+0,65€)
IRR (incl. withdrawals): 6,68%
Invested since: 01.09.2018

The monthly investment limit of 1.000€ is still active on Bondora Go & Grow for the time being, as the platform is currently only originating new loans in its best performing country, Estonia.

Still, the loan volume has been increasing for the second month in a row:

Loan originations push past €3M in October

You can get a 5€ Bonus on Bondora when you sign up via my link.

Crowdestor

Income (Oct. 2020): 27,67€ (-23,61€)
IRR: 9,12%
Invested since: 03.04.2019

With most businesses still struggling in the current environment, I can see that more and more of my loans are late on Crowdestor. Here are my numbers as of November 1st:

Active Investments: 35
Late loans: 14 (+5)
Late (%): 40% (+13%)

I’m hoping that the next few months will be better.

Viainvest

Income (Oct. 2020): 25,71€ (-3,39€)
IRR: 12,17%
Invested since: 11.10.2019

Viainvest published its audited financial statements for 2019. It’s good to see that the VIA SMS Group was able to remain profitable in 2019 as well, as it generated a consolidated net profit of 387.463€.

You can read the blog post and the full audited financial statement here.

Lendermarket

Income (Oct. 2020): 44,16€ (+3,06€)
IRR: 13,72%
Invested since: 21.11.2019

Considering we’re still in the midst of a crisis, I’m glad to see that ~79% of my loans are paying on time on Lendermarket. The Creditstar Group seems to have adapted quickly and handled the last few months very well.

Get 1% Cashback on all your investments on Lendermarket after 60 days via this link

EvoEstate

Invested since: 03.02.2020
IRR: 0,70%

I placed my third real-estate backed investment on EvoEstate on October 15th. I invested 100€ into this project:

Get 0,5% Cashback for 6 months on your EvoEstate investments via this link

I Added EstateGuru – Here Is Why

Apart from EvoEstate and to some extent Crowdestor, the vast majority of loans in my P2P portfolio are personal loans, meaning they don’t provide a collateral like real-estate.

With most of those loans, I have to rely on the loan originators ability to choose the right borrowers and for them to be in a financial position to cover the buyback guarantee in case a loan defaults or is late.

As this (dare I say ridiculous?) year has shown us, that isn’t always the case, which is why I’ve been trying to focus my investments more on what I perceive to be financially stable loan originators with a profitable business model over the past six months.

The situation is different on EstateGuru. All the loans come with collateral in the form of real-estate or other equity. That means that if a borrower defaults on the loan, which is a completely normal possibility in the lending business, the collateral (eg. a house) is sold on behalf of investors to recover the investment and the interest that is owed.

The platform’s track record in this regard speaks for itself. So far, as of November 2020, no investor lost money in EstateGuru’s 6 year history. Better yet, not only did investors recover their entire investment on defaulted loans, but they still had an average rate of return of 9,5% on their investments in these projects.

For all of these reasons, I decided to finally add this platform to my investment portfolio.

I deposited 100€ on October 12th, followed by 400€ on October 15th.

I prefer loans that pay interest on a regular basis, so I only invest into loans with the schedule type Bullet. These pay interest every three months, while the full principal is paid back at the end of the loan term. I also prioritize loans with an interest rate of >10% per year.

Currently, 100€ each are invested in three development loans. Another loan is still in the “fully invested” phase. Hopefully that will switch to “funded” soon as well, as only that is when the loan term actually starts and when I start earning interest on my investment.

I only noticed recently that the funding process for my 5th loan couldn’t be completed, so I’m currently waiting for another loan to invest that money in.

Sadly, one downside that I have found so far, is that the platform is a bit more hands-on than I would like. The auto-invest only gives you more control once you invest a minimum of 250€ per loan, while at 50€ per loan, there is no filter for the minimum interest rate you want to invest in.

As a result, that means that I’ll likely be investing my funds manually for the time being. I can only see myself using the auto invest once I have over 2.500€ on the platform.

Nonetheless, I’m excited to finally test out EstateGuru for myself. Many of you have asked me about this platform over the past two years and I’ve been meaning to add more property-backed loans to my peer to peer lending portfolio anyway.

Use this link for a 0,5% Bonus on EstateGuru for the first 3 months.

That’s it!

Thank you for being here and reading my latest monthly update! Sadly it took me longer than expected to publish it.

However, with Austria going into full lockdown once again, I should have a lot more time on my hands over the coming weeks. So expect more soon!

You might find this interesting:

Video Of The Article

Disclaimer: Investing involves risks of losses. You should always do your own research before investing into anything. Also, some of the links are affiliate links, which help support me, the website & YouTube channel. I only link to services I use myself, none of them are sponsored.

3 Comments

Matyas says:

December 1, 2020 at 14:28

Hi Angelo,

Great stuff as usual!

I have an ETF related question: Have you looked into REITs? What’s your opinion on investing into REIT ETFs? Degiro has a bunch of no-fee ones from BlackRock.

1. Angelo says:
  
  December 2, 2020 at 06:06
  
  Thank you Matyas! Yes I have, but I decided not to add a separate REIT ETF to my portfolio, as they seem to get taxed more heavily in Austria compared to stock ETFs.
  
DJ says:

December 22, 2020 at 16:24

Hi – with reference to EstateGuru, have you checked their Financial Report for 2019? If I’m reading it correctly, they seem to have made a loss of EUR 500k, whereas they were profitable in 2018.