 Good evening and welcome to episode 382 of the Private Property Partcast. I'm your host, Osama Andouma Pomailo. This is Thursday edition of the Private Property Partcast. If you're joining us for the first time, welcome to the family. You're tuned into the leading property partcast in the country. The only one that comes to your screens every single week day. And of course, to make sure that you go to our Facebook or YouTube page to catch up on all the great episodes that you have already missed out on. And all our regular views on Instagram, on YouTube, and on Facebook, welcome to it. You know how we do. Every single weekday, you and I have an appointment at 7 p.m., where I'm always in conversation with a property expert who helps us navigate our property journey. And it doesn't matter where we are, along our property journey, whether you're looking to buy, to sell, to build your tenant, to a landlord, this certainly is the show that helps you along the way. And of course, the other thing that we love doing here across private property's social media pages is bringing you a whole host of other shows that you can certainly watch every single weekday at 8 p.m. As it is at Thursday, you can catch Umbalina, go on the farming podcast, and she's on your screens on Tuesdays at the same time. And every Mondays and Fridays, Chad brings you the home shopper's show, where he takes you through incredible properties that you can find on www.privateproperty.co.za. And on Wednesdays, catch Estee Clarson on the first-time homebuyer's show, where she always brings you those incredible stories from people who've not only walked that first-time homebuying journey, but it's certainly gone on to grow their property portfolios from strength to strength. And of course, as myself, I want to welcome my little every single weekday at 7 p.m., helping you along in your property needs. Now, one of the things that you're going to find on our Facebook page, remember to follow us across our social media pages, and we are on all the major ones, from your LinkedIn, your TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, you name it, we're absolutely there, is that you'll find that on our Facebook page, we are running a great competition, where every single weekday rather, you send a chance of walking away with $500 in cash, and all you have to do is to share with us some of the great property insight and knowledge that you've picked up while watching the show. And if we call your name, you have to drop us a message while we are still live in order to claim your price. It's that simple to walk away with cash right here on the property podcast, so do make sure that you get typing, get commented on that pinpost on our Facebook page. Now, talking about that, I'll share some of the great responses that we've already had from some of the viewers at home, so do you can look forward to that later on, and we'll be sharing some of the ones that so many of you have shared with us along the way. But to kick start our conversation this evening, something that I'm very excited for, especially for the property investors, because I think one of the big things as property investors is we're always trying to find different ways to run our property portfolio better and as efficiently as possible, but also to grow our property portfolio as best as we can. And this evening, we're going to be looking at how technology is increasing opportunity and returns for investment. And I'm joined by Scott Peekin, who is the CEO and founder at wealth, my great Scott, good evening, and thank you so much for joining us. Good evening, Zama, and thanks very much for having us online. Always passionate to share with people in the space, and so I look forward to hopefully adding value to all your listeners tonight. It's such a pleasure to have you with us, Scott. And I think that a really great starting point for the listeners at home is perhaps first to speak to a picture of when you look at just general technological advances within the real estate sector in South Africa, relative to some of our counterparts, perhaps in the US or the UK, perhaps to share a highlight of what the scene looks like in the local market and some of the opportunities that are still there for the local investors. Look, I think the world is just literally opening up for local investors. To put it in perspective, the ACC passed the Jobs Act in 2013 in America, which effectively made real estate crowdfunding legal. We were the very first company or platform to get the license at the end of last year. So if you put it in the perspective, and that was in South Africa and Africa as a whole, that's seven years later to put it in perspective. And so what's happening for South African investors now is they're truly getting access to the same opportunities that have been available in America for quite a long time. However, they're happening fast, and it's definitely not going to take seven years to catch up. So as investors, I think what's truly exciting now is you can invest in South Africa in a local property here from, in some cases, as little as one ran, sometimes even up a thousand ran. But at the same time, you can also invest in England, Australia, America, Europe, and you can do that from 1,000, 1,500 rand, 100 dollars, 100 pounds. And I think that's truly exciting, Zama, because where we were as investors, when you and I were starting out in the investment stage, really, what was the only opportunity was to go buy a house? That was it. That was the only opportunity. You went and read a book. Or REITs, but I think so many of us just didn't know REITs, right? Like that was just like this thing we didn't know. So nobody actually considered that an alternative. It was, you're buying a house and that's pretty much it. I don't think you considered yourself a property investor. And to be honest, like a REIT has a higher than 70% correlation with the stock market. So a lot of people think it's a property investment. It's not. It's a financial asset that has a higher than 70% correlation with the stock market. So again, if you look at it from what I just said there, 20 years ago, you and me, I mean, all we were doing was we would read a book, we'd go on a course and we'd try to go buy a house. Like that was it. What we've got now is so much more opportunity. And it allows us to learn while doing as well. So the one thing if I've learned, I bought my first house when I was 22 years old. I did my first house in London when I was 24. I did my first development to my early 20s, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So I know that I'm slightly abnormal from many. However, what I have learned over the last 23 years is I've made a lot of mistakes during that process. And the one thing with investing is you are going to make mistakes. Like if you don't think you're going to make mistakes, it's like learning to walk and thinking you're going to get it right the first time. It ain't going to happen. And but the beauty with now with what they call fractional investing, which is smaller amounts of money, is you can get started and you can make mistakes and you can learn while doing. And that's just going to put you in a far, far stronger position. So unfortunately, I could spend the entire podcast talking about all the advantages. But the most important thing for me is two things for the investors. The first is that they've now got access to opportunities they never had access to before, whether it's not just the house, but the entire development, the entire shopping center, the entire medical building, the entire industrial complex, which is truly where the wealthy have made their money in commercial property. And everyone's got access to that. And the second thing that I think is truly exciting is they can diversify. They can diversify across countries, they can diversify across assets, they can diversify across currencies, and they can even diversify across partners because even Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. Anyone can go bankrupt. Yeah, I am this evening in conversation with Scott Pickens, the CEO and founder at Wealth Migrate. So one of the things that Scott, one of the assumptions that Scott has made is that 20 years ago, I was old enough to even think of property two years ago, I was what 11. Surprisingly though, 20 years ago, we were, my family were building the family house. And I always tell people how I got introduced to property at a very young age. Mom bought a stand and our house got built. And so really got to see the stand transformed from literally a stand, saw the house plan. So as early as sort of eight, nine years old, literally saw how house plans work. I know how to draw doors, windows, the works on a house plan by hand because I just know how these things work. And so you're not far off the mark, but definitely looking at Can I challenge you though? Can I challenge you? Guess what age when a son invested in his first property? Can you just repeat that? Guess what age my son invested in his first property? I really know you're probably going to say something sickening like teens. Because I know that real estate parents like nudging their kids to these sort of things. Let's hear what the age was. I'm guessing early to teens at five. Okay. My point being is that it's everyone's got access now. So I agree with you. You know, when you were 11 years old, again, the traditional thing was you were helping your parents build their house and learn about that. Fantastic, brilliant experience. But there's very, you couldn't have gone and bought a house when you were 11. It's impossible. You couldn't even got a mortgage. Now with technology, your children can be investing. I mean, my son started investing in five. And you know, often people say Warren Buffett is as wealthy as he is because he started at 13. There's basically no excuse anymore for people not to get started. I mean, starting as early as possible certainly is a really big part. The compounding effect certainly does help quite significantly. And I want to go through some of the questions, the comments that we're getting at home and so much love that we're getting on our Facebook page from the viewers at home and Elda, Everton, Michelle, Vomarans, Bultumelo, Motsabi, Glad, Shirenda, Mo, Rose, Entwine, watching us on our Facebook page and sending all that love, absolutely appreciating it there. And before I go for a break, I actually want us to also go through some of the great comments that you received on that pinpost on our Facebook page that I was talking about earlier. And that's of course where you can share what kind of property in, you know, inside advice you've picked up since watching the show and you signed a chance of walking away with 500 Rounds in cash every single weekday. And I know that yesterday's winner was Ms. Indy was indeed watching the show. So she cleaned that cash. And this evening, we've got 500 Rounds in the money bag. And we've got here. I'm saying I've learned so much. I gained more knowledge from private property on live podcasts. Michelle, I'm saying I've learned so much from your podcast. The following is a few of my favorites, location, negotiation, affordability, credit score, and costs involved. And of course, that's one of the big things, you know, we share various kinds of insights to help you at different stage of your property journey. And the last one from Mallory Petham saying advice center has everything you need to know about the South African real estate market. Get ahead of the game with private property. And that's of course the advice center that private property certainly has. So do make sure that you go to that post on our Facebook page and drop us some of the gems that you picked up while watching the show. I remember the tail end of last year having one of the viewers at home saying that just that year alone, they bought five properties and they bought it because they've been watching the show and they picked up different kinds of, you know, instance and lessons. And we're able to even negotiate better, you know, with the band and with the different purchases of the different sellers rather of the different properties that they bought. So that's certainly the impact that we know that we have with the many viewers at home. And we want to hear more from you when it comes to some of the things that you have picked up. But in the meantime, let's take a look at who the potential lucky winner this evening is of that father-in-law that is in the money bag. And when we come back from the break, we'll be continuing our conversation with Scott Pickett from Wealth Migrate. And the lucky winner this evening is Manelza Mashobani. Mashobani, I would only assume Mashobani who's not. So I hope that you are indeed watching and of course we'll be claiming that price. Mashobani will be able to claim that price. Sparbonadran's up for grab this evening here on the Private Property Podcast with myself. And as we get back to our conversation on how technology is increasing opportunity and returns for investors, I'm joined by Scott Pickett, the CEO and founder at Wealth Migrate. Now Scott, I think let's then look at perhaps then some of the actual technologies that you're aware of. I think the one that you've already mentioned even before the break is of course the ability for us to be able to own real estate or invest rather in real estate in different ways. And the big one of course being fractional ownership and opening up the way that investors can access real estate in ways that you certainly didn't have 20 years back. And even myself, when I started off nearly a decade ago, the option really was I'm buying an apartment. I was buying apartments and there was no other alternative that I thought was possible for me. So when you look at some of those technologies or various systems that viewers at home can certainly use locally now, I think what would be some of those that you would say are certainly opening up opportunities for viewers at home and of course ultimately increasing their returns? Yeah, well, I'm not quite sure to understand your question better because there's technologies that you can use and it's a bit like the internet. Like I could sit here for the next 10 minutes and explain to you how the internet works and kind of the technology behind it. But no one cares about that. Like all they care about is that the internet works and they can go to take a lot and buy stuff on take a lot and arrive at their house. Do you see what I'm trying to get at? Like it's not about the technology that underpins what you're doing. It's about actually being able to get access to it. So as investors, one of the reasons that it dramatically reduces the risk and increases the returns is it cuts out the middlemen. So a metaphor that everyone understands already is Uber. Okay, before Uber came along, we would catch a taxi and it was very inefficient. It was difficult. You would phone a taxi owner operator. They would phone a taxi driver that two hours later, the taxi driver would pick you up. If you didn't know where you're going, the good chances are that take you in a long way around and charge you lots of fees, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And Uber came along and literally wanted to do it, cut out the middlemen, it cut the costs and it dramatically increased the trust, the transparency and the accessibility. Well, technology's doing exactly the same thing within the property industry. So what is it doing? It's increasing the trust. So now, rather than trying to deal with relationships where it's your friends and it's human relationships, you can actually use technology in the same way that you choose to go on holiday or you stay in an Airbnb or you buy something online with e-commerce, you can actually trust your online peers when you're making an investment decision because you're getting that information. Secondly, you've got transparency. The old days, I'll never forget you funny, if you talk about a REIT and the REIT had lost 500 million rand, but yet when you read the small print on page 36 of the PPM, which stands for, I can't remember what a PPM stands for now, but it's a private placement memorandum and it was like they had all the risks on page 36. Like that was the old way of doing it, hide the fees, hide the risk. Whereas transparency now, it's all above board. Like exactly this is what it is, there's not much money making, these are the costs, these are the returns. And then the increasing the accessibility, I think, is we've already discussed tonight because so many more people have access to it. Cutting out the middleman, that for me is an obvious one. Do you know that in property Xamar, if you invest in a property, on average, there's 16 different middlemen between you and your investments. 16. On average, you're paying between 12 and 15% extra for all the middlemen. What technology does, just like Amazon does or Uber does or Apple does for music, whatever, it literally puts the property and you directly together. So it cuts out the middlemen. And by virtue of that, it cuts out the costs. So I often joke with people, we've been helping people invest in commercial buildings in America since 2014, medical buildings to be specific. And our clients have earned an 8% plus cash on cash return. The American REIT in that sector is paying a 4.75%. And I always go, what's the difference? Are we better negotiators? Have we got cover of people working at the company? It's none of that. All we've done is cut out all the middlemen. And rather than literally nearly 50% of your return being paid away to middlemen, it's now going into your pocket. And so I tend to, on purpose, dumb it down a little bit where it's not what the technology is giving you, from a tech perspective, it's what are you getting from what's important to solving your problems? And you and I as investors, what do we want? We want lower risk and we want higher return. And, you know, Scott, one of the things then that, and I even asked this to your colleague earlier this week, is when we look at investors who then want to invest in real estate by using various companies and different other options, right? Whether it's yourselves as well, my great, we're certainly looking at other people who have similar models when it comes to crowdfunding. Of course, some of them are not as, don't have as much time in the industry as yourselves. How do they go about discerning which guys are even legit? Because I'm also seeing quite a lot of players coming on offering crowdfunding, we'll call it models, that unfortunately I'd say are not particularly above board. How do they go about sort of sifting through guys who know what they're doing and knowing that whether you're putting away, you know, 500 rounds, or you're putting away 100K towards that crowdfunding initiative for real estate, that they are in fact legitimate, your money is in safe hands. And all the perks that you've highlighted when it comes to the use of technology around transparency and trust are in fact, you know, going to be in place as opposed to them finding somebody on the internet and thinking, okay, I think this is a great investment opportunity, but inevitably having their money unfortunately misused. Zama, I think it's a brilliant question and I'll tell you why. Technology is an enabler, it's not a fixer. So what does that mean? It enables the transaction, it makes it more efficient, but it doesn't fix. There's a great saying that I heard many years ago, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Okay. And what I mean by that is that, you know, you've still got to stick to the fundamentals of investing. The fundamentals of investing do not change. And if I was an investor and I was doing due diligence, there's three core things that I always recommend that people look at. Okay. The first one is does the partner have a track record? Is this their first time like trying to buy a house and renovate it or do a new development or buy a shopping center or whatever? Or have they been doing this for 10, 20, 30, 40 years? Because really track record, you know, again, we've all been through this, you know, would you take lessons from a baby that was literally learning to walk or would you take lessons from an adult that's been doing it for 40 years? You know, it's simple. The second one is, are they putting their own money into the deal? Okay. Now, having helped investors invest over a billion US dollars around the world and helped investors, you know, in 170 countries, if there's one piece of advice I could say is whoever you're partnering with, are they putting their own money in the deal? Because it is critically important that their money is being treated the same way as your money because it really brings you to the third point, which is, are you aligned? Okay. Are your interests aligned? Now, as an example, if you and me are going into business and you want to build a great company and I want to go surfing every day, like, is the business going to work? No. It's not going to work. We're not aligned. Absolutely not going to work. We're getting married, okay? And you're marrying for love and I'm marrying for money, like, is it going to work? It's not going to work, okay? Yeah. Like, because we're not aligned. I mean, look, we've seen many of those. That's probably not the best example that you can use. We see too many of those. Sometimes they do inevitably end, but sometimes the both parties just come to terms with the fact that you married me for love and I married you for money and we still have, you know, the thing we came here for when we're still getting promoted. Well, then by that analogy, then they're aligned because they were aligned in the beginning. But what I'm trying to get at is that if you deal with the average transaction where you've got a broker and agent upfront that, you know, is just making a commission and then you're putting your money in and you're expecting a return and a long-term return, you're not aligned because they're making a short-term gain, a commission, and you're wanting to make long-term returns. You're not aligned. It won't work. I guarantee you it won't work. And if you look back at some of the massive problems around this country, the likes of ShareMax as an example, they were taking 26% on the front end, upfront. You're not aligned. Like if you invested 100 grand, they took 26 grand in fees and only 74 grand was being invested. So just to keep it simple back to your, because I don't want to talk too much for people, I want to just make it really simple. It's three things. Has the partner done and got the ability to do due diligence? Have they got extensive track record? Two is, have they got their own money in the deal? And three is, are your interests aligned long-term? And honestly, if you can't take those three boxes, technology will not solve any other problem. And I think that's just such a big, you know, investment fundamental as you're saying that this isn't even about technology, about real estate, but it's a fundamental that you can use with any kind of investment decision in general, especially with various players sort of coming on into the scene across different kinds of asset classes and some of them unfortunately are to put it bluntly scamming people. I think we need to be, you know, quite upfront with it. Other players have been in the industry, they've, you know, straight stress tested their model and now have various things in place, various systems in place to enable really great investment. And I think as viewers at home, as consumers, as much as on the one hand, people want to be able to invest in real estate or invest in general and have returns for themselves or for their children, it's also so crucial to understand that when certain things seem too good to be true, probably is because more often than not, a lot of these players are also, you know, offering insane returns that you're not going to get anywhere, regardless of how good they say that they are, you're just not going to be getting those kinds of returns. So if somebody's, you know, saying they're going to get 30% return in six months, nobody's giving you that kind of return. So you almost have to, you know, alarm bells almost have to go off even for you at home. And it's such an important thing for so many of us to always be aware of. And, you know, Scott, as quickly, I just want to back you up there because this is the most important thing is that, and this is why the regulator gets so scared when technology comes to these industries and whatever, because yes, there are a lot of scams out there. So stick to the fundamentals, you know, like as an example, you spoke to our Chief Investment Officer two nights ago, like we're regulated, like that in itself says a lot. It doesn't make sense, you know. And but, but, but please, ladies and gentlemen, you know, what you said there, and I want to reiterate it for people, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And by the way, I love cryptocurrency. But if you think you're getting a 5% to 10% return per month for the rest of your life, like, then you've got to ask yourself, why investing is not putting all of its money into that product? Yeah, why any of the big players aren't putting, you know, all their money into those products is also just because of how volatile it is. And you know, Scott, as we wrap up our conversation this evening, what are some of your, I'll say, expectations or certainly your projections about when we look at the, not just the use of tech, but certainly tech is an enabler in real estate for invest in for South African investors in general and some of the opportunities going forward for them that are potentially out there. I think one of the great things that COVID has had many people at home looking and relooking different ways to earn a little bit extra and to make their rent stretch as much as possible and only trying to find different pockets of ways to invest. So for yourselves going forward, you know, what are some of the perhaps expectations or projections that you foresee for real estate investors in general, in particular? There's two words that I really want to put to my eyes for people. The one is freedom and the one is global citizen. And you know, I'm very passionate, we as a team are very passionate about helping people create freedom in their lives. Now, again, I don't care where they want to go to send their children to school or go to university or where they want to live or, you know, if they want to donate their money to church or whatever. But what I do care about is that they've got the freedom to be able to do that. And nowadays, you cannot rely on your government, it doesn't matter where you live in the world. And the financial industry and the pension plans and everything that just not working. Like, you know, you just have to look at everyone else. So take control of your own life. And what we're passionate about is that freedom and how does one get freedom is passive income. And so, you know, passive income is where you own assets and they pay you money while you sleep. And my real invitation to people is you not only now can get a passive income in rands, but you can get it in dollars, you can get it in pounds, you can get it in euros. And there's nothing better than living in South Africa in this beautiful, beautiful country. I'm very passionate South African, but earning a foreign income from around the world. And that truly allows you to become a global citizen. And I know, Zama, that many people on your webinar right now on your podcast have immediately switched off and gone, that's not possible. That's only for really wealthy people. And I challenge them because you can get started from 1500 rand, which is in the literally the realm of virtually everybody. And so it's a mindset becoming a global citizen is a mindset. Having freedom in your lifestyle is a mindset. And all you have to do is get started. And I tell you, once you've taken that first step, just like I've got my son going at five, it's very hard to turn that round because, you know, financial freedom is is like a utopia. A lot of people talk about and I'm not promising financial freedom. What I'm promising is just freedom, full stop freedom. And how do you get freedom? Well, it starts with your mindset, then you get knowledge, then you get access to investments, you build a system, and ultimately you get that passive income. And my invitation to everyone to walk this road because you can take control of your life. There is no get rich quick scheme, but the technology is there now to enable you to have that freedom in your life. And so it's an invitation, but I will leave it you with one caveat. You don't have an excuse anymore, because every single person can invest like the top 1%. And therefore you've got a responsibility to you and your family. And I want to wrap up with the last two comments from our viewers at home on our Facebook page. We've got Rosen's honesty. Yes, I'm a firm believer of diverse investment. I cannot put all my eggs in one basket. And Minzi Bhutile is saying the US comes and taxes you. I felt it last month. Look, Minzi, one of the big things, the tax man is always going to get you. I see Scott wanting to come in, the tax man in any country, any context. And I say this as a blanket statement. But Scott, do you want to come in there with a comment around the US coming to tax you? Well, two comments. Firstly, if you're paying tax, you're making a profit. So the only time you don't pay taxes is when you're making a loss. So trust me, you want to be making a profit. And the second thing is that using our platform, you don't have to become an expert in offshore structures and everything else. We take care of all of that for you. We've paid literally hundreds of thousands of dollars around the world to be as tax efficient as possible. So I think it was Budilesi that said that. My suggestion is come and use a platform where you've got a huge amount of global experience coming into one place and allowing you to safely and simply invest. And Scott, we're going to leave it there this evening. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. It is such a pleasure to have you with us. Awesome. Thanks for being online. And hopefully everyone tonight takes away your most important message. Technology is not a fix all. It can reduce the risk and it can increase the returns. But don't be stupid. You've got to make sure the people in the platform know what they're doing. It's an enabler. It's not a silver bullet that fixes everything. And I think we always need to be mindful of that regardless of which industry we are talking about. And that is of course Scott Pickin, who is the CEO and founder at wealth migrate, wrapping up the Thursday edition of the private property park cost of myself was a month walk in my law. Unfortunately, my Nelsa, my Shobana was not live watching us. And the team actually let me know that it was a thousand ranks that was in the money bag. So meaning tomorrow we've got a thousand five hundred runs in the money bag. Remember, if you've commented on that in person on Facebook page, all you have to do is to make sure that you watch us live in order to claim your price. Well, that's it for myself as I'm going to walk my land. The rest of the private property park cost team will be back on the screens tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. to see tuned form value knock on the farming park cost at eight until then we'll be staying home and staying safe.