It is important to lend to many borrowers. Lending Club recommends at least 100. That normalizes the risk. My returns have been consistently 9.5-10.5%, net of defaults.<p>I started with an experiment: $2,500 loaned $25 at a time to 100 borrowers. Lending Club forecasts the default rate based on their own credit rating. It went well and the actual return was about 1% higher than they forecast.