Online Investment

Real Estate Investments Unlock Financial Freedom

Blog, Media, Online Investment, Press Release, Real Estate, Real Estate Investment, Uncategorized / Wealth Migrate

South Africans are struggling to achieve financial freedom with 34% not having enough savings to last more than a month if they lost their income/jobsⁱ. However, this freedom can be within reach through investing in quality assets such as real estate to build up a passive income.

“Financial freedom means having sufficient savings, investments, and cash on hand to afford the lifestyle you want,” says Scott Picken, Founder and CEO of Wealth Migrate, a leading fintech real estate investment platform. “Simply put, it’s the freedom to choose, and a steppingstone towards this is to build a passive income which is derived from investing your money in a product that generates profits, creates stability, security, and ultimately, freedom in your financial life.”

When it comes to ways that people have been supplementing their income, Picken explains that investing in cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin has been rising over the past couple of years. “It is important to note that although you can secure a triple return on investment, the only way to get your money out is to sell.”

He points out that real estate is one of the tried and tested investment vehicles through which people can earn a passive income. “In fact, 49% of the world’s wealth is held in property where people not only create their wealth but protect it too. However, only 12% of the global population has access to residential real estate and less than 1% has access to commercial property, which is where the real wealth is.”

“It is for this reason that Wealth Migrate has reduced its minimum investment fee from $100 (approximately R1,570) to $10 (approximately R157) to give more South Africans greater access to the global real estate market,” says Picken.

To assist new investors to get their foot in the door and work towards financial freedom, he shares six steps to real estate investing:

Belief: Henry Ford has been quoted as saying ‘whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right’. And the same applies to the belief that investing will help you find financial freedom.

Knowledge: The next step requires the investor to do research and to learn about the properties in which they would like to invest.

Accessibility: This refers to the action of investing – you can have all the knowledge about your desired investment, but unless you actually do something with it, it’s useless.

A system: Next, your system is what helps you manage your portfolios.

Accountability: As with anything new or difficult, the chances of doing it on your own are very small, but an accountability partner can help.

Results: This is the profits from your investment. If you want to get wealthy, you’ve got to get results.

“Potential investors often believe this is a linear progression, but in fact it’s spiral, because once the results of your investment have been realised, you can go back to step one and reinvest all over again with a strengthened belief. I call this an upward spiral,” explains Picken.

“The challenge is that it works the opposite way too,” he says. “A downward spiral exists because if the belief, knowledge, access, a system, and accountability are not there then you get no results. No one learnt to walk by reading a book, they did so through action, and I believe that the same applies to achieving financial freedom.”

Picken shares that wealthy people prosper due to the habit of consistent investing. “Our philosophy is that, by dropping the minimum investment from $100 to $10, we can give a lot more people the opportunity to participate in the property market and start their journey to financial freedom. Over and above accessibility, we are giving them the ability to diversify their investment, enabling them to invest in 10 deals and assets across various countries and currencies.”

He adds that by lowering the minimum investment fee, this also gives investors the opportunity to reinvest what they earn from their investments more easily.

“To achieve financial freedom, South Africans need to take action and invest. Now is the time to take the next step,” concludes Pickens.

The minimum investment fee will be $10 only until the end of May 2022. For more information, or to invest, go to https://wealthmigrate.com.

About Wealth Migrate

Established in 2010, Wealth Migrate is a leading fintech real estate investment platform that helps the 99% invest like the top 1% to create more financial freedom in their lives. In so doing, the company is closing the wealth gap, brick by brick. Wealth Migrate’s mission is to put the power of smart investing in everyone’s pockets by providing people with a safe and easy way of not only investing in residential and commercial real estate markets globally, but also by diversifying their investment. This is achieved through the use of technology and crowdfunding. For more information, or to invest, go to https://wealthmigrate.com.

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A simple understanding of macroeconomic factors for investors

Blog, Document Guidelines, Investing, Knowledge Base, Online Investment, Real Estate, Real Estate Investment, Resources, Uncategorized / Wealth Migrate

Determining the interest rate, inflation, and platform returns

Wealth Migrate’s FinTech platform means investing in offshore real estate is more accessible and convenient, your wealth isn’t tied up in red tape with our global compliance processes. We’ve enabled a method to create wealth that doesn’t involve hidden fees or extra intermediaries.

All investors learn a new language when it comes to creating wealth by understanding how markets work, and in this way, macroeconomics is a crucial part of learning to invest. Macroeconomics is broadly defined by The Economic Times as the “branch of economics that studies the behaviour and performance of an economy as a whole.” ^[1]

What is inflation?

The quantity theory of money holds that “money supply and price level in an economy are in direct proportion to one another.”^[2] These two factors exist in a seesaw effect, where if the money supply is too big, purchase power decreases and prices rise. Therefore, inflation deals with the supply of money in an economy, relying on purchasing power and the rise in prices.

Inflation measures how much more expensive goods and services have become over time.^[3] This is determined during a defined period and is typically set to 12 months. It’s a measurement of the average rate of increase in prices or the cost of living over a defined period, where inflation refers to prices on the rise.

For the households in a country, the cost of living is determined by the price of basic goods and services that each person needs to pay for, this includes housing, food, taxes, and healthcare.^[4] The cost of this basket is known as the consumer price index (CPI), which tracks the change in prices.

Consumer price inflation is the rate of change in the CPI over a set period and is the most common measure of inflation.^[5] For example, if the base year CPI is 100 and in 2021 the existing CPI is 110, CPI inflation for 2021 would be 10%.

How does the interest rate work?

Raising or lowering inflation has an inverse effect on the base interest rate and depending on the action taken, this can either boost savings or spending.^[6] This is a simplistic explanation of how inflation influences the interest rate as other factors may also play a role in macroeconomics. The increase or decrease of the interest rate affects the economy in a variety of ways but specifically in the cost of borrowing for commercial banks.

What happens when the interest rate increases?^[7]

This raises the cost of borrowing for commercial banks and results in the banks upping their own interest rates, which encourages the population to save and gain higher returns with the cost of borrowing becoming expensive. The knock-on effect of lowering spending in an economy causes economic growth to slow. With more cash held in bank accounts and less being spent, money supply tightens and demand for goods drops – a lower demand for goods should make them cheaper, lowering inflation.

What happens when the interest rate decreases?^[8]

This drops the cost of borrowing for commercial banks and results in the banks reducing their own interest rates. The knock-on effect is that interest rates on both savings accounts and loans are low, making borrowing and spending appealing, but not saving. It causes economic growth by widening money supply and increasing spending on goods and services – a higher demand for goods should make them more expensive, increasing inflation.

How does a platform return work?

Everything you need to know before investing is on the deal itself in the meta-marketplace. When browsing through the deal be sure to view the deal overview as this contains our recorded webinar with specific details from our team, as well as the investment summary, market summary and risk category.

When you invest in one of our deals there is also an initiation fee cost. All our deals transparently display the fee charges, and the investment will take this into account and inform you of what this charge is.

Here’s a breakdown of our fee structure:

Initiation fee: An upfront fee charged at the start of the investment covering the costs of sourcing and due diligence for the deal and setting up the deal-specific legal structure that enables global investors compliant access to the deal through the most tax-efficient structure.
Success fee: A percentage-based fee only charged on profitable dividends or interest to cover ongoing costs of the legal structures. If the deal is not profitable, these costs are covered at risk by our marketplace.
Capital gain success fee: A percentage-based fee only charged on profitable gains. This fee is how we make money, by only getting a reward on successful deals and ensuring our interests are aligned with our investors.

When you browse a deal on our marketplace the projected returns calculator takes your initial investment amount (generally $97 USD) and includes the initiation fee.

To give you an estimate of the projected return for the investment, the calculator will include the average for the following factors (if applicable):

Cash flow percentage
Annual dividends or interest
10% success fee
Return of capital
Capital gain
Capital gain success fee
Projected cash-on-cash return
Projected internal rate of return

For example, this is what one of our investment deals, BNP US Equity Memory Profit Autocall (Shariah Compliant) March 2022, will yield in platform returns when you invest $97 (USD). The image below is how all the projected returns are broken down for each individual investment on our meta-marketplace.

This quick overview of investing belongs to an educational series that we provide to our investors. For more information, view further articles on our blog that cover how to invest in Wealth Migrate’s platform, and how our processes protect your information and financial transactions.

^[1] The Economic Times (March 2022). ‘Definition of macroeconomics?’. Retrieved from The Economic Times.
^[2] The Economic Times. (March 2022). ‘Definition of quantity theory of money?’. Retrieved from The Economic Times.
^[3] Smialek, J. (January 2022). ‘Inflation has arrived. Here’s what you need to know.’ Retrieved from The New York Times.
^[4] Banton, C. (March 2021). ‘Cost of living definition’. Retrieved from Investopedia.
^[5] Oner, C. (2022). ‘Inflation: prices on the rise’. Retrieved from International Monetary Fund.
^[6] U. S. Wealth Management. (March 2022). ‘How do interest rates affect investments?’. Retrieved from U. S. Bank.
^[7]Wessel, D., and Powell, T. (November 2020). ‘What are inflation expectations? Why do they matter?’. Retrieved from Brookings.
^[8]Wessel, D., and Powell, T. (November 2020). ‘What are inflation expectations? Why do they matter?’. Retrieved from Brookings.

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Global Wealth Group and Wealth Migrate: Business Growth and Scaling

Blog, Investing, Online Investment / Wealth Migrate

Written by: Mariken Jansen van Vuuren, Head of Marketing at the Global Wealth Group and Wealth Migrate.

Amazon needs no introduction, their CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, created a popular growth strategy called the “flywheel.” Based on the core concept of a virtuous cycle, a flywheel takes a lot of effort to move initially, but once it starts, it gains momentum and quickly spins faster.

To grow and scale both the Global Wealth Group and Wealth Migrate business, we decided to map out our own virtuous cycle with guidance from the Amazon archetype. We looked at how our virtuous cycles turn, what the various sequences look like, and how we move our different drivers to create unstoppable momentum.

The Global Wealth Group (GWG)
We make primary market investments in alternative assets accessible to anyone, anywhere, from any amount, enabling investors to safely invest and diversify globally, using technology such as collaborative SMART investing. Our meta-marketplace offers B2B and B2C opportunities for investors to crowdfund property. This unique solution provides access to digital wallets and enables people to invest in global property opportunities across the globe and alternative assets. We focus on bringing international opportunities to clients in emerging markets.

Global Wealth Group’s virtuous cycle

WealthPoint – platform as a service technology
Our starting point is our WealthPoint technology, which powers our meta-marketplaces. Wealth Migrate is our flagship platform and our proof of concept, while WealthPoint provides a white label solution to property partners, financial planners, institutions and strategic partners in both genre and geography sectors. We build on the significant demand and distribution for supplying the same products across various active marketplaces.

Active marketplaces
We have partnered with entrepreneurs who built their marketplaces on our technology. These partnerships along with an increase in transactions on their platforms lead to increased revenue for our business. So far, our meta-marketplaces extend to Wealth India, Wealth China, Wealth RSA, Wealth UK, Wealth Australia, Wealth America, Wealth Europe, Women and Wealth, Shariah Wealth, Wealth Create, and our flagship company Wealth Migrate. We are looking to grow this further in region and genre for a more robust diversification. Our active partners made us realise the importance of cultivating an entrepreneurial community.

Entrepreneurial community
Seeing our Wealth Point technology as a starting point and Wealth Migrate as our proof of concept, we have extended our entrepreneurial community, adding value to entrepreneurs and our business.

We are developing various personalised content touchpoints for our active partners. We are also in a unique position to have our partners contribute to content in webinars, articles, and success stories. This type of organic and paid content becomes a powerful touchpoint in a potential investor’s conversion journey, leading to more transactions for all marketplaces powered by WealthPoint.

More transactions
More transactions mean more revenue for our business. An increase in transactions on various active marketplaces using WealthPoint allows us to negotiate better partnership deals for investors on multiple platforms. Thanks to a growing demand for active deals, we’ll see increased traffic to the various marketplaces. This will gain momentum and lead to a more attractive option for future active partners, allowing us to sign up for new active partners and to diversify our marketplace offering even more. An increase in deal demand and a variety of deals hosted on our Wealth Point technology will help us to continue growing the marketplaces that have already signed with us.

Entrepreneurial ecosystem
To expedite growth, we have started to go beyond having only an entrepreneurial community by focusing on creating an entire entrepreneurial ecosystem. We did this by developing additional support for our active partners and our marketplaces.

We created the Affiliate Boost, a semi-personalised marketing package, for entrepreneurs with an incredibly competitive fee to assist them with setting up and running their platforms, combined with the support of an experienced marketing team. Entrepreneurs have the option of various packages based on different services and pricing models tailored to suit multiple active marketplaces and different marketing needs.

Our meta-marketplaces, such as Wealth Migrate, are fundamental revenue drivers that now operate within the competitive landscape of our partner’s active marketplaces. We created a smaller marketing cycle to increase high-intent investor traffic and conversions within our entrepreneurial ecosystem. This is a prototype that can later be leveraged for additional marketplaces.

We developed Wealth Movement, a networking event allowing like-minded people to build relationships and networks while introducing them to our various offerings. From here, a potential new client can directly become an investor with Wealth Migrate.

Sometimes novice investors won’t trust their judgment or feel confident enough to make investment decisions. To fulfil that need, we started Wealth University. This allows investors to upskill, guide them to make better investment choices and teach them how to build out their portfolios using our marketplace. While attending Wealth University, we fund an investor’s digital wallet for their first investment with Wealth Migrate. Showing confidence in our product gives the investor a risk-averse first investment to kickstart their journey with us. The goal of the entrepreneurial ecosystem is to drive more traffic and transactions for our own platforms.

More traffic and transactions
High-volume traffic and many verified members on the various active marketplaces will lead to more investments in our deal. This results in higher revenue, and a greater demand for deals. In turn, it allows us to negotiate better deal partners at a higher limit deal investment with a broader deal variety that is more likely to result in consistently solid returns.

Deal demand
This will help us negotiate firm deals with strong partners to ensure deals are fully funded, and we will be able to negotiate a higher limit of investments per deal. Going back to our WealthPoint technology, strengthening our deal offering for our active marketplaces and investors will help us improve the deals offered and keep our technology competitive. As our demand for deals increases, we will provide specialised and unique deals per marketplace. We will then further add value to the various active marketplaces by helping to differentiate the deals even more. Not only will this help us grow and scale, but it will ensure we stay ahead of new competitors.

Wealth Migrate’s introduction
Our digital platform is GWG’s flagship brand and proof of concept, with a mature global meta-marketplace that offers multi-financial asset classes, global compliance, a payment system, and personalised digital wallets. Our meta-marketplace helps solve the wealth gap through accessible wealth using a safe and secure FinTech solution.

Wealth Migrate’s virtuous cycle

Meta-marketplaces and content touchpoints
Our starting point is our customers’ experience which comes down to our virtual meta-marketplaces and content touchpoints:

These meta-marketplaces should be easy to navigate and trustworthy.
We should always have live deals customers can invest in with a good variety of deals, for example, an existing medical office building in the USA vs a co-living development in Australia
This content aims to educate, engage new markers, and guide funnel conversion both paid and organic.

Verified members
Increased traffic leads to verified members and, therefore, more transactions. We are implementing marketing automation to assist with down-funnel conversions and have an entire team to help new members through the verification process.

Transactions
Increased transactions are our primary goal to grow Wealth Migrate’s business. Through transactions, our business generates revenue once a new member is verified, targeted marketing has been put in place to urge them to invest. Once new members have invested, further marketing persuades them to re-invest in other deals or use the previously paid dividends for additional investments.

Supply
We are working with our holding company, Global Wealth Group, to increase supply and deals on our site by creating demand with a wider variety of investment deals.

Lower entry points
To expedite our growth, we are making our deals even more accessible with an even lower entry point. Now, we can accept deals for just under $100 (USD), but we are working to get that investment amount down to as little as $10 (USD). With a lower entry point, we will exponentially grow our number of transactions, leading to even more demand for various on-site deals.

More deals on site
As transactions increase and our success stories help to establish trust. Product trust will create demand for many more deals on our platform. As we gain our customers’ confidence and they’re able to see their wealth grow successfully, they will be compelled to invest significant amounts and start investing in a variety of deals.

Being disciplined
We realise that growth doesn’t happen by itself. To ensure we reach our growth goals and scale up our business, we’ve incorporated three disciplines within our leadership structure to keep us honest:

Purpose-driven meeting rhythms
Clear business priorities through objectives and key results
KPIs (Key performance indicators) – using data and metrics to guide decision making

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Wealth Migrate and Clem Sunter’s exclusive investment planning webinar

Media, Online Investment, Press Release, Uncategorized, Webinars / Wealth Migrate

Cape Town, South Africa. In an exclusive webinar on global and local investment planning, Wealth Migrate CEO Scott Picken, played host to acclaimed scenario planner Clem Sunter on 18 August 2021.

During this pre-recorded interview, Sunter identifies global and South African scenarios that could affect future investments. In particular, the flags to be aware of in assessing potential risks and opportunities, and he answers a few key questions from online viewers.

His most recent book co-authored by Mitch Ilbury, Thinking the Future: New Perspectives from the Shoulders of Giants, continues this futurologist theme on adaptable decision-making in a complex digital world. Published only in July 2021, this book has proven to be popular and is available in print and as a Kindle eBook.

Since the 1980s, Sunter has put together many possible scenarios for presentations as a keynote speaker in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He continues this legacy of exploring future possibilities as a prolific author of at least 17 books. In 2001, The Mind of a Fox, co-authored by ChantellIlbury, accurately captured the possible terrorist scenario of the 9/11 attacks on United States soil.

Sunter’s authority on scenario planning began when he was appointed to the positions of chairman and CEO at Anglo American’s Gold and Uranium division in South Africa. His primary responsibility was to head its scenario planning unit and guide its business strategy to mitigate risks.

For more information, view the webinar here.

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Update on property investments: South African Investors in 2021

Investing, Online Investment, Real Estate, Real Estate Investment / Wealth Migrate

Following the global challenges from COVID-19 and how it has affected economies and investment planning, Scott Picken Chief Executive Officer and founder of Wealth Migrate and scenario planner Clem Sunter have joined forces again, to provide a much-needed update for South African investors on the state of property investments.

Sunter’s latest book co-authored by Mitch Ilbury on Thinking the Future – New Perspectives from the Shoulders of Giants, seeks to futureproof strategies to restructure SA’s economy and create local opportunities for growth.^[1] While Picken’s perspective on this is still the same, and he wrote this in his 2014 book Property Going Global, “The challenge is: do you have the right information, are you choosing the right partners, making the right investments and, most importantly, asking the right questions?”^[2]

In line with this ideology, they’ll team up in an exclusive upcoming interview on 17 August 2021 to expand on the following factors:^[3]

The scenarios for the global economy
The scenarios for the South African economy
What do we plan for and is there a future in property investments?
How does this impact your investment strategy?
What types of investments and asset classes are good decisions, and what should you be aware of when investing?
Which countries offer profitable real estate investments?

Scenario planning for the South African property investor

Picken authored the book Property Going Global, and it detailed his expert advice on investing with confidence to create global wealth.^[4] As a prolific author, Sunter has written a series of books based on his best-seller The Mind of a Fox co-authored by Chantal Ilbury, which focused on a technique for speculating on the impact of future scenarios by assigning “flags” for the probabilities.^[5]

Based on Sunter’s methodology, Picken provided his outlook on investing in real estate with his four-dimensional model, which covered fundamental theories on the Global Investment Due Diligence System.^[6] His framework considers the implications of worldwide economics as well as local factors from the South African viewpoint, that play into making investment decisions. His vision with his business Wealth Migrate, is to offer investors a convenient online method through crowdfunding to acquire residential and commercial property in South Africa and globally.^[7]

When deciding to invest, knowledge and a solid understanding of the real estate industry is key, not only is thorough research required, but you also need to decide how much you can afford to invest. This can be daunting especially for new investors and even for current investors that are trying to hedge their bets on a wise investment, and we’ve made this research easier with an upcoming interview from Wealth Migrate

Investor insights

Sunter’s experience at Anglo American from the 1970s and onwards, set the tone for his career as a futurologist in scenario planning.^[8] Clem Sunter, an acclaimed scenario planner and strategist, was responsible for the foreword of Picken’s book Property Going Global, and endorsed it according to his professional experience in the field.

In his foreword he highlighted that, “…we ask individuals or companies to gauge the impact of the scenario on them and, depending on the probability, decide what should be done to chase the opportunities and counter the threats.”^[9]

To help you make informed decisions for the future, join Picken and Sunter on for a talk about global scenarios for the South African investor and the way forward. Click here to register for the webinar.

^[1] Sunter, C. (July 2021). ‘Thinking about the future – Scenarios for South Africa with Clem Sunter’. Retrieved from Youtube.
^[2] Picken, S. (2014). ‘Property Going Global: How to create global wealth and invest with confidence.’ Retrieved from Property Wheel.
^[3] Picken, S. (July 2021). ‘What can you learn from one of the world’s best scenario planners – Clem Sunter?’. Retrieved from YouTube.
^[4] Picken, S. (2014). ‘Property Going Global: How to create global wealth and invest with confidence.’ Retrieved from Property Wheel.
^[5] Sunter, C., and Ilbury, C. (2001). The Mind of a Fox’. Retrieved from Entertainment-online.co.za.
^[6] Ryan, C. (March 2021). ‘Talking alternative investments and offshore property’. Retrieved from Moneyweb.
^[7] Ryan, C. (March 2021). ‘Talking alternative investments and offshore property’. Retrieved from Moneyweb.
^[8] (2021). ‘Clem Sunter – Scenario planner – futurologist and keynote speaker – Cape town and Johannesburg’. Retrieved from Entertainment-online.co.za.
^[9] Picken, S. (2014). ‘Property Going Global: How to create global wealth and invest with confidence.’ Retrieved from Property Wheel.

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