I've learned a lot lurking these forums figuring out what consolidation loan to get, so I just wanted to drop in by Lending Club experience this week.
I have an assortment of debt unfortunately from unexpected family medical bills totallying around 32.5k. My AMEX APR just reset from 0 to ~22% so I figured it was time to look into a personal loan. I went between Prosper, Lending Club, and SoFi. They all had good rates but they varied from term to term. Rates seemed somewhat sporadic day by day as I was looking into it based on options available.
Kind of an interesting note regarding my Lending Club Loan. When I had set the reason as Debt Consolidation initially, my APR 15.30%. I ended up cancelling that loan because I wanted to change the dollar amount and check out SoFi, which had a slightly better rate. But I was still debating between SoFi, LC, and Prosper. Prosper had the best rate for a shorter 36 month loan. SoFi had the best overall rate for any term with no origination fee. Because SoFi didn't have an origination fee, I had to play with the loan amounts to compare them with LC and Prosper to see payments based on what LC and Prosper were actually paying out.
When I redid the applications so I could compare rates again two days later, I had set my reason as Credit Card Refinancing rather than Debt Consolidation, my APR dropped to 10.59% for the 60 month term. A huge drop in APR from 15.30%. Not sure why, but something to keep in mind in case it changes for anyone else as well.
Monday Morning: Applied for the Lending Club Loan, LC requested W2, 2 Paystubs, Bank Account Verification, Work Email Verification
Tuesday Morning: Small Bank Deposit went through the previous night, LC requested phone verification and asked a series of questions regarding my identity.
Wednesday Morning: Nothing from LC, no movement whatsoever.
Thursday Morning: Loan Approved by LC and the funds are being delivered right now, most likely will go through this evening. The loan for some weird reason never went into a funding stage and I am not 100% sure who funded my loan. I'm thinking potentially that LC bought my loan out and never listed it. In fact, my listing still has the Funding Area grayed out and I can't view who my investors are.
Loan Requested: $34,125
APR: 10.59%
Amount Despoited: $32,419
Term: 60 Months
Total Finance Charge: $9,480
Monthly Payment: $698.32
4 day turnaround with a pretty decent rate. I may refinance it later through SoFi as I expect my rate to drop when my CC Utilization Drops. I'm not a big fan of Lending Club after reading about them because they make it pretty difficult to pay additional money towards the principal. They are a little rude on the phone, but the phone is the only way of getting additional payments made. Prosper and SoFi seem to have an online payment system in place.
My Details:
TransUnion Score: 733
2015 Income: $99,924
Debt: $32504
Credit Line: 102k between AMEX, Chase Freedom, Discover, BoA, Best Buy CC.
I checked my rate a lot in the past week with these sites who do Soft Pulls debating between terms and precise amounts. I can't remember all the rates I saw, but I noticed they seemed to change day to day and there is definitely some sort of APR Threshold between loan amounts. It could be as simple as taking a loan for $1 less than that threshold to get the lower rate, so I encourage someone who is in this sort of position to play around with it and find what works for you.
I hope this information helps someone out there comparing rates. Now I just need to ride this out and hopefully work towards an early payoff.
