PHOTO: Not your average teen: Picken, at 13, working on his first property project with his father in Zimbabwe.
Shortly after the 2008 financial crash, Scott Picken was struck by the incredible opportunities available to property investors in London. One building in particular — “48 units, 12 percent net return” — was “an absolute no-brainer.” With one caveat: He needed to come up with 10 million British pounds (roughly $15 million at the time). Picken, a South African who already had a flourishing international real estate business with 2,500 clients, thought rustling up the cash would be easy. It was actually “bloody impossible,” he says.
Out of this disappointment was born the global real estate marketplace Wealth Migrate. Investors can be located anywhere (so far it has members in 127 countries) and the minimum investment is $1,000 (soon to be $100). Since going live in 2013, more than $80 million in equity has gone through the platform, and it’s facilitated $520 million in international deals. Picken, 42, dreams bigger, setting his mind on “closing the global wealth gap by showing the 99 percent how to invest like the 1 percent have always done.”
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