Inclusive Property Investment: How EstateX Is Changing the Game
In partnership with APG
By Kody Boye
If you’ve ever sought advice on building wealth and achieving financial security, you’ve been told to invest. But more often than not, when it comes to investing, the old adage is true — it takes money to make money. When your funds are limited, you can invest in penny stocks and your retirement plan, but many of the more lucrative asset classes (like real estate) are out of reach. Bart de Bruijn noticed that worldwide barrier and wanted to do something about it. And he did — he co-founded EstateX.
What Is EstateX Known For?
EstateX is a fractional real estate investment platform. It allows people to purchase shares in investment properties and receive monthly passive income proportional to those shares. For example, if you owned a 10% share in a rental home and that home generated $100,000 in annual profits, you’d receive $10,000 of those profits.
Through EstateX, de Bruijn aims to give people who have traditionally been priced out of real estate investment the opportunity to access the steady, passive income traditional real estate investors have always enjoyed.
“What we are keen on is giving investors the power,” says de Bruijn. “We want to really open the real estate market, lower the entry barriers, and allow investors to access the property ladder. We do that via the equity type of model. So we want investors to be able to invest $100 and have real ownership.”
Why the focus on lowering barriers to entry? “The cost of living crisis is krypton,” de Bruijn says. “A lot of people can’t afford to pay their car note. A lot of people are being killed by interest rates and the rates of inflation. As people, we’re earning more in our monthly salaries than we’ve ever earned in our lives, but it’s being diminished. It works out to be less just because inflation is so high.”
A Glimpse Into the Backstory: The Origin, Growth, and Purpose of EstateX
De Bruijn, who is based in the Netherlands, has seen financial struggles around the world, and he hopes that allowing more people to start investing in real estate can help alleviate that struggle. “Worldwide, the average 30-year-old isn’t even able to go to the property market. This has never happened before, so there needs to be a change,” he says. “There needs to be a solution, and EstateX is that solution.”
Unlike the stock market, EstateX doesn’t require investors to have a knowledge of the real estate industry — or even of investing in general. “EstateX is making investing in real estate simple, affordable, and accessible to everyone everywhere,” de Bruijn explains. “Even if you only have as little as a hundred dollars, you can get onto the property market and start adding multiple streams of passive income.”
Even selecting which properties to invest in is especially user-friendly. “You can swipe through the different buildings, choose your match, and add to cart, and then boom, it’s in checkout and you own it,” says de Bruijn. “You would have already set up an account, so signing the digital document to get your deed is just ticking a box. You have ownership within seconds.”
Of course, for new investors who are particularly cash-strapped, passive income doesn’t have much of an appeal if it can’t be accessed to cover everyday expenses. The income investors gain from EstateX is far more accessible than virtually every other type of passive income — the platform pays out daily.
Users can also use their investment returns to pay for everyday items directly. “You can have your payment card digitally attached to your property portfolio,” de Bruijn says. That card works much like a debit card, and investors can use it online and in person.
The Future of Financial Health Is Bright
EstateX is still new, and de Bruijn is preparing to launch in Europe and North America. From there, the company is slated to expand into other markets, including Latin America. Of course, expansion takes time. Before EstateX launches in a given market, it must be fully compliant with that market’s often stringent regulations.
De Bruijn hopes investors of all backgrounds will use EstateX as a stepping stone to better financial health. The platform will include free courses, webinars, and other tools to teach users how to start building wealth. And thanks to EstateX’s comprehensive approach, de Bruijn is convinced users will succeed.
“We aren’t just teaching them how to fish,” he says. “We’re giving them their own fishing rod, we’re showing them the mechanics of how to be a successful fisherman. We’re giving them their own bucket of fish and then showing them how they can multiply it.”
**Investing involves risk and your investment may lose value. Past performance gives no indication of future results. These statements do not constitute and cannot replace investment advice.
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