Well, now that IOUCentral has launched and Communitylend should be just around the corner in the Canadian Microlending World, I wanted to make a post about what kind of information future borrowers should make in their personal loan requests.

Firstly, take a look at Prosper.com's loans. This is the BIG American P2P lending company, and they've been around for a while. So, what works there should mostly work in Canada.

From what I've seen on IOUCentral, I'd have to make the following suggestions:

1. Be reasonable in your interest rate. A 19 month GIC is paying 4.36% right now at my credit union, and I wouldn't be surprised if I could find >4.75% if I spent at least 10 minutes looking around. On Prosper, loans to users with "AA" credit ratings are around 9%, "A" credit ratings are around 12%, "B" credit ratings are 16%, and somehow, "C" credit ratings are also around 16%. Of course, Canada isn't the USA, but that is a bit of food for thought. But hey, if you believe you can get a lower rate, go for it. The source of this information was Eric's Credit Community, which is a great source of loan information on Prosper.
2. Be a bit more descriptive in your funding listing. Many users seem to have included no information at all. I don't think anyone should part with thousands of dollars while having no idea what it is going toward. Write about who you are, where you're from, what you're going to use the money for, why you need a loan for the money, and most importantly, why we should believe you'll be able to pay it back. Many users on Prosper post their monthly budgets (you do keep a budget of your money right?), including their gross income, rent costs, utilities, food costs, entertainment costs, and then how much is leftover at the end of each month (which better be more than the repayment amount).
3. Be reasonable in your loan length. One thing that I love about IOUCentral is that they allow you to borrow for any length of time between 1 and 36 months. Prosper in the US still only does a fixed 36 months (though you can prepay at any time, as you can with IOUCentral). I've noticed some loans that were posted for periods of 1 month in order to pay off a credit card. This doesn't make sense, what will they do next month? I doubt they're going to come up with $1000 or more in one month. And if they were somehow able to (perhaps a job bonus or something), they didn't bother to write anything in their description to tell anyone this.
4. Do your research. Look at other loans. Say to yourself: "How can I get people to bid on my loan over this other person's?". What aspects of myself, such as a low D/I ratio should I emphasize in my listing? Do I even know what a D/I ratio is?
5. Proof-read your listing. Read it over yourself a few times, perhaps even have someone else look at it. Does it make sense? Should there be more or less information? Does it have spelling mistakes anywhere/everywhere? Think of your listing as a resume for a job.
6. Have any questions? Don't just list anyway. Post here and someone can hopefully help, or send an email to IOUCentral. Or ask a friend on what they'd do if they were to loan out their money.

In summary, just try to think of the things that you'd look at if you were lending out your own money to someone. Is the rate good? What are the risks involved to me? Does it look like they're taking this seriously?

Here's a US Article in the Wall Street Journal about "Borrowing from Peers", which also has some of this information.

Good Luck!!!