Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa October 2014 | Page 58

CROWDFUNDING BY SCOTT PICKEN Real Estate Crowdfunding An American or a global thing? “Top Crowdfunding Sites for Real Estate” – headlines like this keep coming up, but how are these crowdfunding sites judged and on what basis are they ranked? T he vast majority of these reports include only US crowdfunding sites. For example, in one recently published article, Prodigy was ranked at number 11, and yet the size of their deals far surpasses anything which has happened in US. Local players Wealth Migrate has just closed a $16.1 million medical portfolio in Atlanta, US, raising capital from investors on five continents: Asia, Africa, Australasia, Europe and North America. Investors from the US constituted less than 10% of the investors. This deal adds significantly to Wealth Migrate’s already impressive track record. Wealth Migrate also has an extensive pipeline of deals in some of the best real estate markets globally, which are in final due diligence stage. Global Real Estate Marketplace This is why Wealth Migrate is recognised as the Global Real Estate Marketplace. To further endorse this, Wealth Migrate has been asked to be MIPIM’s real estate crowdfunding partner, sharing with MIPIM delegates the exciting future of real estate crowdfunding. MIPIM, the world’s leading global real estate event, is held in Cannes in France annually and brings together the most influential players from all 58 October 2014 SA Real Estate Investor international property sectors worldwide. For 25 years, MIPIM has undisputedly been the most important global real estate event. The future At Wealth Migrate, we are extremely grateful that both the US and the rest of the countries worldwide are waking up to the staggering opportunities real estate crowdfunding is opening up globally. We are fortunate to already have decades of experience in helping people invest internationally and to have a broad range of partnerships already established. Crowdfunding has allowed us to enhance this platform extensively, which will benefit everyone involved. We are particularly excited about the fact that crowdfunding brings us another step closer to our vision of doubling the number of people globally who benefit from the wealth created by real estate. Currently, 49% of the world’s wealth is held in real estate and yet only 12.9% of the world’s population has access to real estate. We want to double this number to at least 25% by 2020. Milestones such as our presence at MIPIM will show more people what is possible when real estate meets crowdfunding. RESOURCES Wealth Migrate www.reimag.co.za