Robert, would you talk to me a little bit about
yourself? Introduce yourself and then we'll dive
right in. Yeah, sure. Pleasure to be here. Pleasure
to be here, Sue. So yeah, my name is Rob. I'm
the founder of my real estate and investing business
called Rolston Real Estate. I'm from Ireland
originally, but I live just outside Glasgow in
Scotland. I've been over here for about 17 years
and roots firmly down now. My family's all across
here. So this is now home. and i start i suppose
from humble beginnings and i was never the smartest
guy in school and did what i was told to do though
worked hard and got through school got into university
and came out with a degree in in healthcare and
very quickly i think i realized that uh wasn't
for me um and i just got a wee bit disenchanted
with the nine to five and broke away from that
after about two to three years and just chucked
it all and went traveling to thailand and on
a bit of a soul search and found financial education
financial literacy deep dove a library of books
on the stuff and when i landed back from traveling
i immediately started pursuing property and i've
built up a portfolio for myself and my family
um and i'm a bit of an evangelist about property
and about financial education and investing now
and my current business model is sitting targeting
an audience where we kind of identify a gap that's
in the wealth between the wealthy and the well
offered the wealthy and the working person as
opposed to the rich and the poor that's the gap
that everybody talks about but we want to help
just the average person attain affluence that's
our that's our kind of mission statement so there's
nothing special about me i'm a very average very
average guy and like i said i started with no
money in the bank account but If I can do it,
anybody can. And my business sits at that demographic
to help the average person to get ahead because
the wealthy 1 % are surrounded by financial advisors,
family offices, and people whose sole job it
is to create more wealth for them based on the
fact that they make their money off those fees
because it's larger transactions. But the average
person doesn't have hundreds of thousands to
throw around. But they still have... more than
they realize and more capability to change their
stars. They just don't have the tools to do it.
So we will either help them to build their own
portfolio, or if they're not in a position to
do that, we will help them deploy capital so
that they can attain investment -like returns
that would otherwise only be available to the
wealthy. So that's what my business model is,
is basically helping the middleman to kind of
climb and get security for his family. That's
so great. Now, I want to ask you this question
here. and you've touched on this a little bit
you know definitely but what is it that vision
when you imagine the person that you're serving
like the the future that you can like imagine
for them what is that vision yeah well so so
how my business has evolved over time and the
the kind of pivotal turning point in in my business
was i have a background in healthcare and there
was a gentleman came in to see me and he was
in his 50s and he had had a heart attack and
like a month and a half later two months later
he'd had a stroke now He was a high -flying businessman.
He was a high -ranking manager in a bank. His
wife didn't have to work. Both his kids went
to private school. They both drove Mercedes and
he had the big house and everything was going
great. But all of a sudden, he wasn't able to
work because of what had happened. And now the
bank was coming after his house. He'd had to
sell the cars, uplift the kids out of school.
His wife was having to go back to work. And the
rug had been pulled out from underneath him for
no reason at all other than he'd been dealt a
really... crummy hand he'd done nothing wrong
he'd in fact done everything right and i sat
back and i thought my god well number one i have
to put the skids under the property thing and
get security from my family because if i get
hit by a bus tomorrow i need to make sure that
that they're going to be okay but on the other
side of that coin i was like you know if this
has happened to him and this could happen to
me this could happen to anybody so there's a
real need for the average person to be able to
build passive asset -based income that is going
to create financial security for them and for
their family because without that you know everybody
thinks that if you're in the nine -to -five job
that it's secure but actually if something happens
to you you're very quickly replaceable and that
really it turns your life upside down you know
and and and money is money is a stress money's
a tool but money's a stress there's there's people
across the globe hanging by a thread because
of money because they're sweating the bills and
it doesn't have to be like that And like I said,
I am a bit of an evangelist about property and
about investing because it's changed my life.
It's changed my family's life. And my vision,
like I said earlier, is that the average person
can achieve affluence. The average person doesn't
have to have anything special about them. But
if they reach out and look to get the right tools,
they can get themselves ahead. They can create
financial security. They can create a life of
affluence, a life of security for them and for
their loved ones. So my vision is to create that.
My vision is that there doesn't need to be a
struggling middle class. There should be, there's
enough wealth to go around. People just need
to know how to access it. That's amazing. That's
a, that's a bold, big vision. I mean, to eradicate
that, that's amazing. Yeah, absolutely. You know,
it's a big problem. The way that the Western
economic system is built, it's built on taxing
the working man and the middle class. And the
wealthy 1 % are protected within corporations
and they know the strategy is to offset their
tax and to create further wealth. And they are
wealthy enough that they, like I said earlier,
have a team that they can surround themselves
with who are able to then build. more wealth
off the, off the fact that there's money to throw
around. So it means that the, the gap between
the wealthy and the well -off, like I said, is
just, it's just getting wider, but it doesn't
have to be that way. It just, the financial education
isn't there for the, the average person. So that's
the gap that we want to sit in and we want to
change that. I like that. Now thinking about
like your, your vision for your business itself.
What do you want to see? You know, you're a young
guy. What do you want to see for the next 20,
30, 40 years? What could this become? Well, you
know what? I think I'm quite a holistic guy.
You know, there's nothing flashy about me. My
goals have never been, you know, lofty to have,
you know, the Lamborghini or anything like that.
My goals have always been I want security for
my family. I want time to spend with my family
and I want to give my kids opportunity for nice
things if they want them. So outside of that,
from a personal vision, you know, I've created
that. I'm quite secure in where I am and we're
on that path. But as my business has evolved,
I recognize that, you know, I'm not alone in
those desires and the people who work with us.
are very average people you know and all they
want is they want you know passive returns ticking
in that you know looks after the christmas presents
in december so they don't have to worry about
that big bill or it pays for the family holiday
or it supplements the retirement or you know
it builds a portfolio that they can hand to the
grandkids it's it's very much building other
people's visions is now kind of my vision if
you like because we are we're small so we have
the capacity to pivot based on what our our clients
goals are so we can actually be very bespoke
and where do i want to go where do i want to
grow it at the moment we invest very much locally
in scotland and we know the market here the market
is is very good to us here and the cost of entry
to get into the property market is really low
compared to for the likes you know the likes
of the states you know somebody over here can
can get a flat or an apartment on a 75 % loan
-to -value mortgage and the value is 50 grand.
So you're talking around about 30K and somebody
can be earning passive returns forever. But I
guess we'll expand that in Scotland and potentially
then look to expand it across the UK. And as
the team grows, I suppose we can look to expand
further than that. But it kind of depends. My
real vision is to... keep this at a level that
i'm comfortable with i like the very personal
approach and like i said my personal goals aren't
lofty i don't really want the yacht in the pacific
to be honest with you and so as long as i'm helping
other people that's kind of where i sit i can
see that that's pretty cool how many people are
in scotland now uh populations around about five
million okay a lot of people you can serve yeah
yeah it's a similar kind of size of population
to ireland so yeah Both about 5 million. That's
neat. Yeah. Do you have a team? Oh, go ahead.
I was going to say about the same population
as in London by itself is in Scotland. It's true.
Do you have a team that helps you? So we kind
of outsource most things. in so much as you know
we have people we have connections now who will
um bring opportunities with property deals to
us we have a team of trades who we will be able
to put in place for refurbishments and when they're
in play and we have a team of letting agents
that will put the tenants in and carry it forward
because we can sort of serve here, there and
everywhere. We don't really have a big team of
staff as such because we will bring them in as
and when projects demand it and depending on
geographically where those things are, it wouldn't
really make a huge amount of sense for me to
employ somebody in Glasgow when I have a project
that's up in Aberdeen and I need to send them
all the way up there because, you know, that's
going to be... uh not necessarily feasible for
them to just ship up there for for four weeks
at a time because they'll they're gonna have
family and all the rest so the the sort of subcontracting
or contractor model is is is where we work off
but we're very well connected and we're we're
several people deep in in all of those avenues
because we've built those teams over time so
all of those uh contractors know us and trust
us and we have a very good relationship so we
do we don't kind of hang around in terms of when
we have projects on the go we act on it very
quickly and then we can get them through to completion
or to refinance very quickly as well because
of that so the the model works very efficiently
and based on those factors and again it means
that we're able to to pivot and be mobile and
because we have several people deep we're not
relying on just uh a couple of members of staff
and if one of them are busy we have to put the
next thing on the back burner we can actually
have multiple projects working at the same time
because of that Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision
Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your
reactions as these episodes continue to move
forward. This is going to get more and more fun.
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Have an excellent time building out your vision
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