Years ago I decided to try out peer to peer lending as an experiment to see how to invest some money. I originally started with $100 in lending club and $100 in Prosper. Since that time, lending club stopped allowing Florida residents to be lenders, so have dumped them. Prosper seems to not have a problem with my residency
In the last 6 years I have added more lending money to my Prosper account, so that I now have a total of $1000 invested. The money has grown, it says that its growing at an 8 percent return rate, but the balance shows that I have $1400, all invested in loans. That's kind of amazing, because other than the occasional email statements I had completely forgotten that I had this account. And Prosper had been quietly reinvesting my money into new notes.
The downside to this investment is that it is really quite difficult to get your investment back quickly. To withdraw your money, you have to turn off auto investing, and then wait. And wait. And wait. Which makes sense, as most of these loans are over a 5 year time frame. As your money becomes liquid again it can quickly be transferred back into your checking account.