Austin Hair, Leaders Real Estate
From Wakeboarding to Real Estate Success
Guest: Austin Hair, Leaders Real Estate
What does wakeboarding have in common with real estate?
My guest this week, Austin Hair, is an expert at connecting the dots between these two careers. In today’s show, he discusses how he transitioned from being a professional wakeboarder to becoming the Managing Partner at Leaders Real Estate, where he raises capital for his own healthcare real estate acquisitions.
Austin is also exploring the ‘capital allocator’ model as the next stage in his career and shares insights he’s gained about that approach.
Deal Structure
Having attended several real estate and business masterminds, Austin has identified three key roles in a fund: the fund manager (largely administrative), the ‘expert investor’ (more commonly known as the sponsor or operator), and the capital raiser (the role Austin plays).
Austin’s approach is to seek opportunities where these roles split the General Partner economics equally, one-third each, or at least where the capital raiser earns a pro-rata share of the GP economics based on the proportion of equity raised relative to the project’s total equity requirement.
Target Deal Criteria
Austin prefers deals in the $14-$15 million acquisition range that require approximately $5 million in equity and is comfortable raising $500,000-$1 million per deal.
He seeks sponsors with a minimum of 5+ years and 5+ deals of experience, avoids first-time sponsors aiming to raise large funds (up to $100 million), and is skeptical of sponsors projecting unrealistic IRRs (70%+) preferring, instead, deals with IRRs of 15-18%, which he considers more realistic.
Austin is particularly drawn to healthcare real estate, especially dental practices, as his research shows they have some of the lowest tenant default rates, making them a safer investment option.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
Listen to this episode to hear Austin discuss the biggest challenges he has faced in raising capital and to learn about the single most effective way he has found to connect with more investors for his fund.
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