People Property Place #108 Ryan Prince, Vice Chairman Realstar Group & Founder UNCLE
Ryan Prince established Realstar's UK operation in 2002 and since this time the company has acquired and developed over £3B of assets, including a portfolio of 73 Holiday Inn hotels comprising of 13,000 rooms, over 6,000 rental residential and student accommodation assets and a national portfolio of primary healthcare centres.
Most recently the company has created UNCLE - a new kind of rental housing brand. Rated #1 on Trust Pilot in the UK, UNCLE’'s mission is to offer 'renting as it should be'.
From a standing start in 2017, UNCLE now has 12 locations open and under construction in London, Leeds and Manchester and through its joint venture with QuadReal, is seeking to at least double in size of the next 3-5 years.
I sat down with Ryan to discuss a broad range of subjects which covered some of the following topics:
- Early career moves & reason for moving to the UK
- Ditching venture and how he got into the real estate game
- His first real estate deal, and how he got the UK business off the ground
- Scaling Realstar to a £3bn 5000 unit UK business
- Ryan’s ‘strategyless’ approach to business
- Views on the UK housing targets & government
- Importance of brand in a commoditised world and the creation of UNCLE
- Approach to raising, and retaining capital partners
- Advice for those wanting to set up your own business
- Current market trends
- Future growth plans
Oh and one last question - who are the People, what Property, and in which Place Ryan would invest should he have £500m of capital at his disposal.
Catch the full episode which will be live on Youtube, Spotify and Apple NOW!
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