Jean Galea

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MyTripleA Review – Better Alternatives Exist

Last updated: January 19, 20222 Comments

MyTripleA is a Spanish investment platform launched in 2015. It is the first and only Spanish crowdlending platform that has been granted two licenses to operate:

  • Payment Entity license granted by the Ministry for Economics and supervised by the Bank of Spain
  • License to act as a Crowdfunding Platform (since July 2016) registered at the CNMV.

MyTripleA offers two ways to invest:

  1. Fixed and guaranteed returns that are based on the Euribor rate + 2%.
  2. Non-guaranteed loans with a higher interest rate.

Guaranteed and Fixed Returns Loans

They offer guaranteed deposits and returns through collaborating with SGR (Sociedades de Garantia Reciproca). These entities are supervised by the Bank of Spain and guarantee payments in case that other companies are unable to pay.

In this way, there is no need to diversify since all the loans are guaranteed. MyTripleA says that they use the same SGRs as the banks themselves. Hence you are getting the same security as you would when putting your money in a savings account at the bank. However, you get a much better rate of return.

See also: The Best European P2P Lending platforms

MyTripleA says that the difference between what they offer and what the banks offer is due to the fact that banks keep a much larger commission for themselves, and hence MyTripleA are passing on to their clients a bigger share of the profits.

In case that there are any delays or defaults affecting your loans, the SGR will return any capital invested plus interest. This will take place after the 3rd failed payment. The maximum period between the failed payment and the compensation date is 60 days.

When investing in these fixed returns loans, you commit your money for a total of 36 quotas, in other words, you won’t be able to withdraw your money for three years. During this period you will be receiving monthly interest and capital repayments.

Non-Guaranteed Loans

While the guaranteed loans are certainly a nice way to park a sum of money and get safe returns, they are not that interesting to me at this stage. I am still young and am more interested in generating good returns while undertaking a medium risk rather than focusing fully on low risk. This is why I was more interested in the non-guaranteed loans that MyTripleA offers.

When I decided to invest, there were a few non-guaranteed loans available. I decided to go with a factory that needed the money to buy supplies of rubber and plastic. The company is based in Cantabria and was looking for a total of €7,350 in funding. In return, they offered a 6% annual interest rate. This was a relatively short-term loan of just three months, which made it very attractive to me.

MyTripleA does a good job at providing a risk analysis for each loan as well as details about the company and the loan itself.

Below is the introduction of the loan and its details.

They gave it a D rating with a 3.99% of loss of funds. In that eventuality, I would have not

The MyTripleA website is only available in Spanish at this stage.

As with other Spanish platforms, MyTripleA deducts 19% of all your interest payments.

I feel that the website itself is a bit old-fashioned and there isn’t much activity really. This has made me somewhat lose confidence in MyTripleA and I have decided to pull out all my funds from this platform. The 19% tax deduction doesn’t help either. The idea is good but they need to modernize themselves and make sure that investors always have plenty of diverse loans to choose from.

I would recommend having a look at some better platforms like Mintos, Swaper and Peerberry instead.

Have you invested your money with MyTripleA? What’s your experience so far?

Filed under: Money

How Are Profits from Peer to Peer Loans Taxed?

Last updated: February 18, 20211 Comment

If you’ve been investing in P2P loan platforms such as Mintos or Twino, you will need to know how the profits you make will be taxed.

This is a general rule for all your investments. Always consider the tax impact of any investment you do. Different asset classes and investments can be taxed in different ways, so you need to look at that as it will affect your net return, sometimes in a drastic way.

The UK tax authority has issued a good guide that should be applicable to many other countries in the EU too, although it’s always important to check with your country’s authorities for specific guidance.

The advantage of peer to peer loans for lenders is that they can generate higher interest rates that exceed the interest that could be earned from banks and other financial institutions.

P2P loan platforms also give borrowers an alternative to the finance which they may get from standard financial intermediaries.

[Read more…]

Filed under: Money, P2P Lending

How to Easily Invest in Portuguese Real Estate

Last updated: May 01, 20233 Comments

The best platform I have found for investing lower amounts and building a diversified portfolio of Portuguese property is Housers. Apart from investing in Portuguese real estate, with Housers you can also invest in Spanish and Italian property. I’ve had some issues with my Spanish investments, but the Portuguese investments have done well.

So how do you go about it?

The first step is to join Housers. When clicking this link you get a free 50 Euros to invest. This platform is open to all European investors, and it’s very easy to join.

Once you have created your account, you can take a look at all the investment opportunities that are available at that point in time. Keep in mind that most opportunities are filled pretty quickly, so don’t dwell on things too long. My strategy is to invest small amounts in many properties. In this way, I can briefly skim through the financials and plans for each property and make a quick decision, knowing that in the worst case I wouldn’t be hit with a big financial loss.

As you can see in the screenshot above, there are different types of opportunities and they each present different rates of return. At the moment, Housers you can invest in properties in Spain, Portugal and Italy. No doubt more countries will be added later on.

Let’s use our Portuguese investment as a case study. To invest in the Campo de Ourique property, you would need to click on the opportunity and you will be taken to the details page. Here you will be able to check out the plans for this apartment including graphical renders as well as financial projections. You can then take a decision on what amount of money you wish to invest.

In this particular case, Housers is looking for a total of 193,000 Euro in order to finance the purchase and refurbishing of the property. The plan is to sell after 5 years, so this is a property that will be refurbished and rented out, giving us a monthly return (dividend). As you can deduce, this is the same as buying a property, renting it out and collecting the monthly rent. With Housers however, you don’t have to worry about maintenance and all the other administrative tasks, plus you get the opportunity to diversify over many different locations, types of buildings and countries.

The listing includes location information, building plans and renders. The annual return is projected to be around 4%, which is quite good considering what the banks are currently offering for savings accounts. Of course, you are assuming more risk than when you leave money in the bank account, but you are being well compensated for it.

Keep in mind that your profits from Portuguese Housers investments will be taxed at 28% at source, but you can credit that against the tax payable in your country of residence. Portugal might also have a double taxation treaty in place with your country which reduces the tax rate further, but you’d have to claim that from the Portuguese authorities which isn’t very practical.

So once you’re ready to invest, you enter the amount, in this example 2,000 Euro. You can then finance the purchase of shares using your Housers account or using your bank’s credit/debit card. Once that selection is done, you can go ahead and confirm the investment. That’s it, you’re now an investor in Portuguese property. You will be updated regularly with new developments about the property.

Let me know if you have any questions about investing in Portuguese real estate via Houses, and I’ll be happy to help based on my experience.

Invest in Portuguese real estate via Housers

Filed under: Money, Real estate

🏠 Planet Home Review 2023 – How I Invest in German Real Estate

Last updated: February 09, 202313 Comments

In this article, I will tell you why I chose to invest in the German real estate market, specifically through the Planet Home platform.

The German real estate market has been on a boom for a number of years now, so I decided to investigate the situation and see whether it’s potentially a good investment.

It turns out that German cities have statistically been Europe’s most highly favored real estate investment for the past few years, as investors seek out well-performing safe-haven assets.

Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich represent four of the top five European markets for real estate investment and development; the other being Dublin.

Recent data from Real Capital Analytics confirms that Germany has overtaken the UK in post-EU-referendum investment volumes. Although London remains Europe’s primary market for global capital – it has fallen in the city rankings for investment and development prospects.

Since the Brexit vote, Germany has enjoyed a pick-up in interest. Meanwhile, real estate investment trusts in Germany and Scandinavia have risen since the Brexit vote to trade at premiums to the value of their assets, a sign that investors feel their cash is safer there.

With more than 80 million people, Germany is Europe’s highest populated country. It boasts Europe’s strongest economy, which is now the fourth largest in the world, and has approximately 42.8 million people in employment.

Factor in that Germany has one of the most productive economies in the world and a booming export market and it becomes understandable as to why its property market attracts large amounts of international capital. A total of EUR70 billion was invested in the sector, for example, between 2010 and 2015, with Germany attracting nearly half of the capital invested in Europe’s residential property sector.

The German Real Estate Situation

As I was doing research on the German real estate market, I learned some surprising facts. Apartment viewings often turn into mass events, with 50 or 60 would-be tenants turning up at an appointment.

Many bring application portfolios with detailed information on their earnings, their creditworthiness and their family situation. It can be insanely difficult to find an apartment, and you are still expected to pay a deposit of 2-3 months rent. At least the agency fee is paid by the landlord, which is not the case in Spain, for example. One other curiosity is that most apartments don’t come with a fitted kitchen; you have to install it yourself.

In Hamburg, apartment prices rose by 70 percent between 2010 and 2015. They are expected to surge by another 50 percent by 2030. A three-room flat can cost around $450,000 (400,000 euros) in residential areas close to the city center.

Not all regions have registered rapid property price increases, however. Even in cities like Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, high rental prices in the newbuild segment have not necessarily been matched by high rents in the existing rental property sector.

Secondly, price increases have been driven by population growth, the ongoing trend toward urbanization, and strong economic fundamentals, combined with historically low interest rates. At the same time, Germany’s rental housing sector has seen vacancy rates fall close to zero.

Finally, loan-to-value ratios are typically no more than 75 percent, which underscores the financial soundness of the German market.

Let’s have a look at some of the major cities and how they’re faring. One important rule of real estate investing is that you need to be looking at cities rather than countries in general, as the dynamics can be totally different from one city to another with the same country.

Berlin: Full boom at the moment, with a rapidly growing demographic as more people move into the city from all over Europe given its development in sectors such as technology.

Frankfurt: Another city that is in full swing, it is benefiting from Brexit news and the promise to become the financial centre of Europe in the coming years.

Cologne: Demand exceeds supply in this city, so the forecast is good for investment in the next few years.

Dusseldorf: The luxury property market is getting saturated, but there is still demand for basic housing.

Hamburg: Gentrification is underway in several areas and this is paving the way for further growth in the property market.

Munich: Prices have risen very far and are approaching London territory. Locals find it very hard to keep up with rental prices and are even more priced out when it comes to buying. Rent has not yet risen as much in comparison to purchase prices.

The PB3C website is an excellent source for updated news about the real estate market in Germany, it is worth following.

How to Invest in German Property – The Easy Way

The volume of investment raised by crowd-investing platforms for property developments and redevelopments has been doubling every year and there are no signs of saturation yet.

Planet Home, previously known as iFunded, is the leading property crowdfunding website in Germany. They have a very nice interface and all the information is well presented in German and also in English. They are open to investors all over Europe and signing up is super easy.

To get verified, you will need to download the Deutsche Post app and then arrange for a video chat through the app. A Deutsche Post employee will call you and take a photo of yourself and your passport in order to complete verification. It’s one of the swiftest and most straightforward ways of verification that I’ve encountered so far. In this sense, the platform lives up to the German standards of professionalism and organized way of working.

Planet Home offers two types of investments: bonds and loans.

Bonds belong to the investment class of securities under the German Securities Trading Act (Wertpapierhandelsgesetz, WpHG), in which creditor rights, in particular interest and repayment of the borrowed money, are securitized.

A subordinated loan is a debt to the receiver which ranks below senior loans and is regulated under the provisions of the German Investment Provisions Act (Vermögensanlagengesetz, VermAnlG).

The minimum investment is EUR500 and the maximum is EUR10,000 as a private investor. Returns can be as much as 7% per year, which is excellent when you keep in mind the low risk profile of the German market.

The investment is paid back at the end of the investment term, which varies from project to project but is already determined during the Funding Phase. Interest is either paid during the project in the course of the year or at the end of the term. This depends on the project. The Planet Home platform receives marketing fees from the project developers. These include a one-time fee per project and ongoing fees depending on the duration of the project.

Alternatives

There are many other real estate platforms that you could check out, although most of them do not offer properties in Germany. The top three I would recommend checking out are the following, with the first one also offering properties in Germany:

  • Rendity (read my review)
  • Reinvest24 (read my review)

My experience

I have so far invested in two projects on the Planet Home platform, and there were absolutely no problems whatsoever. At the end of the loan period, I received a transfer in my bank account to cover the principal plus interest. I also got an easy-to-understand statement about the transaction that I could then use for presenting my tax returns.

Planet Home is definitely a platform that can be relied upon if you’re looking for a safe investment in German real estate, and I’ll continue investing here for the foreseeable future.

Invest in German real estate through Planet Home

Filed under: Money, Real estate

The Best Crypto Resources

Last updated: May 11, 202316 Comments

Here’s a collection of my favorite resources from the world of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, tokens and blockchains.

If you’re new to the world of crypto and you’re feeling overwhelmed, I’ll start out with a section that’s just for you.

Books

  • See my dedicated post about the best Bitcoin and crypto books

Binance Research

Courses

  • Saylor Academy Bitcoin for Everybody

Crypto Twitter

  • My Crypto list

Crypto Prices and Exchange Liquidity

  • Coinmarketcap

Exchanges

  • Binance
  • Bitpanda
  • Kraken
  • Localbitcoins
  • Comparison of many platforms

Leveraged Trading Platforms

  • Bitfinex
  • Bitmex
  • Exmo
  • CEX

Decentralized Exchanges

  • Uniswap
  • 0X
  • Bisq

Crypto Borrowing & Lending

  • Nexo
  • YouHodler

See my post on the best crypto interest accounts and lending platforms.

Important Websites

  • Bitcoin.org
  • Ethereum Project
  • Nakamoto Institute

Ethereum

  • Gas Prices

Lightning Network

  • Lightning Network official page
  • Breez
  • Lightning Labs
  • Lightning information

Crypto News & Blogs

  • Cryptoheadlines – Crypto news aggregator
  • Dailycoin – Your daily crypto guide
  • Coinmarketcal

Resource Websites

  • The Case for Bitcoin
  • Keepitsimple Bitcoin
  • UpFolio’s Crypto Guides

Inheritance

  • Crypto inheritance guides

Cryptocurrency Hedge and VC Funds

  • 1confirmation
  • A16z
  • Alameda Research
  • Arrington XRP Capital
  • Binance Labs
  • Bitwise index fund
  • Blockchain Capital
  • BoostVC
  • CMS Holdings
  • Coinbase Ventures
  • Coinfund
  • DeFiance Capital
  • Digital Currency Group
  • Dragonfly Capital
  • Electric Capital
  • Fabric Ventures
  • Framework Ventures
  • Fenbushi Capital
  • Galaxy Digital
  • Grayscale
  • Hashkey Capital
  • Huobi Capital/Exchange
  • Kinetic Capital
  • LedgerPrime Capital
  • Multicoin Capital
  • Pantera Capital
  • ParaFi Capital
  • Paradigm
  • Placeholder Ventures
  • Polychain Capital
  • Three Arrows Capital
  • Union Square Ventures
  • Winklevoss Capital
  • Crypto fund costs

Crypto Tax Calculators

  • Cointracker
  • Cryptotrader
  • Cointracking
  • Koinly

Also, read my article about the best crypto tax software solutions.

Tools

  • Mnemonic code converter
  • Pi Hole network wide ad blocking

Crypto Custodians

  • BitGo Custody
  • Gemini Custody
  • Bitcoin Suisse Vault
  • Coinbase Custody
  • Fidelity Custody
  • Bakkt
  • itBit
  • Knox Custody
  • Onchain Custodian
  • Copper
  • Unchained Capital (collaborative custody)
  • Casa (collaborative custody) – see docs too
  • Sygnum Bank

You can also check the custodian comparison site for further options.

Crypto-Friendly Banks in Europe

  • Read my dedicated article about crypto-friendly banks.

News Sites (Spanish)

  • El Bitcoin

Newsletters

  • Bravenewcoin
  • Cryptocompare

Consultancy

  • Jakub from Finematics
  • Ministry of Nodes

Run Your Own Node

  • Umbrel
  • RaspiBlitz
  • RoninDojo
  • MyNode
  • Feature Comparison

Inheritance Solutions

  • Casa Inheritance

APIs

  • Nomics
  • Whale Alert

Wallets

  • Mobile wallet – Exodus
  • Mobile wallet – Argent (for DeFi)
  • Mobile wallet – MyCelium (Android)
  • Hardware wallet – Ledger Nano X
  • Hardware wallet – Trezor Model T
  • Wallet Scrutiny
  • Castle – wallet for NFTs
  • Gnosis Safe – Ethereum multisig wallet

Read my article about hot wallets too.

The Software wallet comparison compiled by Veriphi is a very good additional resource if you’re not sure what to go for.

Price Alerts

  • TargetMoon (10 free alerts)
  • Coindera (free for email alert, paid for SMS alerts)
  • Coinmarketalert
  • Coinwink
  • Cryptoloom

Earn Bitcoin

  • Microlancer

Bitcoin Art

  • Lucho Poletti

Stats and Analytics

 

  • Lunarcrash
  • Dune Analytics
  • Glassnode
  • Nansen
  • Cryptoquant
  • Tokenterminal
  • Intotheblock
  • Santiment
  • Clarkmoody’s dashboard
  • Mempool space
  • Mempool observer
  • Bytetree Terminal
  • Currencies used to trade Bitcoin
  • Barchart Crypto
  • Bitinfocharts Crypto
  • Defi pulse
  • Coin.dance
  • Bitcoin treasuries – Bitcoin treasuries in public companies
  • Statoshi – node stats
  • Howmanyconfs

Block Explorers

  • Blockstream
  • OXT
  • KYCP
  • Sochain

Accepting Bitcoin Payments

  • BTCPay
  • Bitpay
  • GoCrypto

Debit Cards

  • See my article on crypto debit cards

Charts

  • Bitcoinvisuals – many Bitcoin charts under one roof – especially technical related.
  • Moonstats
  • Cryptowatch
  • Bitcoincharts
  • Tradingview
  • Tradinglite
  • Metatrader

Bitcoin ATMs

  • FindBitcoinATM

Domain Registrars

  • Unstoppable domains
  • Ethereum Name Service

Trading Courses

  • Technical Analysis for Cryptocurrencies
  • Entries and Exits

Podcasts

  • What Bitcoin Did
  • The Pomp
  • Stephan Livera Podcast
  • The Flippening
  • Unchained
  • The Breakdown
  • Base Layer
  • The Delphi Podcast
  • Untold Stories
  • Epicenter
  • The Bitcoin Game
  • Bitcoin Knowledge Podcast
  • The Gift of Bitcoin – excellent for beginners

YouTube Channels

  • Andreas Antonopoulos – Fundamentals and Technical
  • DataDash – Trading
  • Technical Roundup – Trading
  • Off Chain with Jimmy Song – Bitcoin

Research

  • The Block Crypto
  • Arcane Research
  • Delphi Digital
  • Bitwise Investments
  • Consensys

DeFi

  • Fast DeFi tutorial
  • Bankless
  • DeFi Pulse
  • DeFi Rate
  • DeFi Dad
  • The Daily Gwei
  • DeFi Weekly
  • The Defiant
  • Pools.fyi – Top Liquidity Pools
  • DAPP Radar

DeFi Aggregators

  • Zerion
  • Matcha
  • Harvest
  • Zapper

Trading Bots and Automation

  • Coinrule
  • Shrimpy
  • 3Commas
  • Cryptohopper
  • Tradesanta

Also, see my dedicated article on crypto trading automation bots.

Crypto Jobs

  • Bitcoiner Jobs

Forums

  • BitcoinTalk
  • Reddit
  • Forobits (Spanish)

Deals

  • Bitcoinblackfriday

Bitcoin-only sites

  • Bitcoin Q n A
  • Keep it Simple Bitcoin
  • Casebitcoin
  • 10 hours of Bitcoin
  • Bitcoin Only
  • Bitcoiner Guide
  • Bitcoinwallet guide
  • Bitcoin node guide
  • Bitcoin intro
  • Bitcoin optech
  • Bitcoin devlist
  • 21ism – bitcoin inspired creativity
  • Lopp’s bitcoin information and resources
  • 10X security guide
  • Wallets recovery

Telegram Groups

  • No Bullshit Bitcoin

More Resource Lists

  • Bitcoin Only
  • Jameson Lopp’s list
  • GitHub List

Any other resources I forgot to mention?

Filed under: Cryptoassets, Money

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Jean Galea

Investor | Dad | Global Citizen | Athlete

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