Category Archives: Finance Tips
The African Real Estate Evolves and Becomes More Liquid
For the past few years, capital investors in the African real estate had been attracted by Central and Eastern Europe, but as the potential for further growth and earnings continues to slow, investing closer to home seems to become a much better opportunity.
Source: pixabay.com
Well-known listed funds and investors involved in major deals
During the first two quarters of 2019, there were at least ten significant transactions in excess of more than half a billion dollars across multiple sectors of the Africa Property Investments. According to Real estate expert Ofir Eyal Bar, also actively investing in the South African markets, major developments can be spotted in the region:
“The involvement of well-known listed funds and global investors shows that the African real estate market continues to evolve and becomes more liquid, which is a major sign of development.”
Among the most popular names involved in major deals, we should mention Centum Real Estate, Nedbank, Standard Bank, Growthpoint Investec African Properties Investment Fund (GIAPF), and Grit Real Estate Income Group, among others.
Between October 2nd and 3rd, the 10th annual Africa Property Investment Summit took place in Johannesburg and gathered well-known capital investors in the African real estate. Multiple senior investment officers, real estate agents, CEOs, and other important figures had attended the event, in a time when major stakeholders had been more active in the first half of 2019 than in the previous two years combined.
Real estate opportunities in Africa
With rapid urbanization, a rapidly growing middle-class and thus a wealthier population, business, re-location and travel to Africa for business or tourism purposes, the demand for new modern offices, hotels and retail malls continues to go up.
Although the development is not even across all Africa, the appetite for developers and lenders continues to become broader. Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya are some active jurisdictions, with the majority of the big real estate projects focused around important urban centers (Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, etc.).
The expansion of the population in Africa had pushed big local retailers like Shoprite, Game, or Pick’n Pay, to begin a major extension of their operation across the entire continent, building shops, warehouses, offices, and other major real estate projects. There’s a growing interest from international retailers like Walmart, Zara, and Topshop to continue their expansion in Africa.
Overseas travel to Africa had further aggravated the imbalance between supply and demand for luxury hotels. The African hotels’ development is considered to be one of the fastest in the world, with big players like Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Marriott International and others, targeting aggressively the big urban centers.
Like any other real estate market, Africa does have some major challenges which investors must face. According to ipe.com, the lack of transparency, poor infrastructure, political risks, cost control, the difficulty in obtaining permits and approvals, and currency risks are the most important issues. Future revenue projections for real estate developments are unsustainable due to a lack of investments in major infrastructure and power projects.
Luckily, real estate financing across sub-Saharan countries is generally dollar-denominated, which means international lenders can rest assured that facilities are dominated in dollars and there’s the ability to repatriate loaned amounts.
Summary
Favored by high yields and positive economic growth projections, African real estate continues to be appealing among developers and lenders. As we’ve seen, there are some major hurdles that need to be dealt with carefully, but the opportunity to generate substantial returns is present. With well-established developers like Atterbury, RMB Westport, and Actis, as well as increasing interest from international banks and financial institutions, the near future seems to be poised for growth in the real estate sector. Patience, careful planning, due diligence, and sensitivity to cost pressures, should suffice to overcome all challenges and profit from Africa’s potential.
The SocialGood Cashback Ecosystem Mechanism
During 2019 we’ll witness several blockchain-based companies launching promising projects which will aim to integrate technology for the benefit of all the people. It is the case for the project developed by the Social Good Foundation, which will provide a Cashback for users to purchase products from companies taking part in the ecosystem.
What is the Social Good Foundation?
The above-mentioned project is being developed by Social Good Foundation from Tokyo, Japan, in coordination with its wholly-owned subsidiary, Social Good Foundation Malta Ltd. The foundation plans to expand at the global scale with its first social contribution token ecosystem through the SocialGood cryptocurrency (SG token).
The ecosystem mechanism in a nutshell
A project developed using the blockchain technology combined with Artificial Intelligence, the SocialGood Cashback ecosystem relies on the SG token, an Ethereum ERC-20 compliant cryptocurrency.
According to the information provided by the company, a number of 17,727,258.918 tokens will be issued in the 2019 fiscal year and the maximum issuance limit had been set at 210,000,000 SG tokens.
The token ecosystem mechanism is based on the traditional demand-supply principle. With a limited number of tokens issued (meaning a limited supply) and no limit in terms of demand (a successful project can attract a lot of buyers).
This structure is not new at all and it is intended to preserve and support the SG token’s value and thus rewarding the investors who hold SG for longer periods of time. If more SocialGood Cashback users will purchase goods, there will be an increasing demand for SG tokens, which makes the SG price inclined to rise in value over time.
The same principle works for the currently-largest cryptocurrency in the world – Bitcoin. Launched more than 10 years ago, Bitcoin had been gradually increasing in value over time, and despite the selloff which took place during 2018, at the present time Bitcoin is valued at $4,000 per piece. Although the performance was bumpy, long-term Bitcoin investors had been the biggest beneficiaries.
The Social Good Ecosystem has the same purpose of preserving long-term value and reward people for buying products online. As the traditional capitalistic system is generally beneficial for high-net-worth individuals, the Social Good Project is targeting to reduce inequality and give back to the people cashback payments using the SG cryptocurrency.
During the span of 2019, the Social Good Foundation will conduct token sales to wise investors who are interested in the project. The company will then use the funds raised to invest in the business, conduct advertising and run buyback-type operations, which imply that the company will collect the SG tokens that are out in the market.
Learn to Invest from Ray Dalio
Investing is a skill that can be learned with time and that is the exact reason why we are writing about it. We know that some of you are eager to learn how to invest online and that is why we have decided to write a few articles about what you should learn from famous investors, people that have a long proven track record and that have achieved great success in this field.
Today we will start with Ray Dalio, founde, and CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the most successful hedge funds in the world. We will try to see what lessons can we take from him about how ordinary people should invest their money.
What can we learn from Ray Dalio?
Ray Dalio started his investment company out of a two-bedroom apartment in New York and at the present time, Bridgewater manages over $160 billion. He managed to reach that milestone by establishing a culture inside his company based on radical truth and radical transparency, things that he described in his latest book called Principles.
Not only his principles made him so successful, but also the way he approaches investors. His main focus is on diversification and he had constantly emphasized that having a balanced portfolio and risk spread are important aspects for any investor, especially during these unpredictable periods we are facing right now.
Even though he had never disclosed entirely his investment strategy, he gave some tips and information that could be valuable for each one interested in online investing. His strategy called “All weather”, specially designed to perform well in any type of economic conditions had been described in Anthony Robbins’ book Money-Master the game. For those of you wanting to learn more about the strategy, reading the book would be the best things to do.
His unconventional approach to investing, integrating transcendental meditation in his regime, had made him famous and widely considered as one of the most successful investors in history.
For those of you wanting to start their journey with online investing, learning as much as you can from Ray Dalio would be a good foundation. Although he does not have too many public appearances, you could find plenty of interviews on YouTube + articles written by him especially on LinkedIn. Make sure to study his work and see what other lessons you can learn from him. There’s no doubt his experiences can be productive for yourself and your investing journey.
Cryptocurrency Investing in 2018
With the growing popularity of cryptocurrencies, one could ask what kind of investment strategy works in this new market. In our previous article we have talked about how to invest in commodities and now we want to focus on some of the aspects related to cryptocurrency investing.
Is there any difference to other markets?
The answer to this question is no. Cryptocurrency investing should be treated like any other investment, with one particular mention: One must take into account that the cryptocurrency market is still in its early phases, volatility is higher than in other markets, and a lot of sudden and important changes could appear any time and completely change the rules of the game.
How can someone invest successfully in cryptocurrencies?
Given these complicated conditions, you might ask how you could invest in cryptocurrencies in an efficient way. That is why we want to give you some pieces of advice about how you should treat crypto investments.
We assume you already know how to invest online, so we will skip all the very basic concepts. Firstly, when it comes to cryptocurrency investing, the best way to do it is by focusing on those tokens that have a few years in the market and have established a good reputation. You probably know them already: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, and Dash, all of them have been performing well in the past and all are part of a mature market, as compared to the other recently-launched coins.
A market in its early phases is very easy to manipulate, given the small liquidity and reduced number of participants. A developed market is where professionals are putting their money in, so there’s where you need to be as well.
Buy low and sell very high
As with other investment, timing and pricing are two of the most crucial aspects. You need to buy at a cheap price and sell them as high as it is possible. At the time of writing, in July 2018, the cryptocurrency market as a whole is in an oversold condition. That means the valuations are low compared to the end of 2017, so investors across the globe might have already started to see where some cryptocurrencies will bottom out, in order to anticipate a new bull run.
Last, but not least, you need to take regulation into account. Make sure to invest in cryptocurrencies that comply with the regulation, as it could save you from unwanted situations in the future.
