Why Refinancing Beats Flipping in Real Estate with Austin Hair

On Accredited Investors Only, I recently sat down with Austin Hair — former professional wakeboarder turned developer and healthcare site-selection specialist — to unpack why he prefers refinancing and holding commercial real estate over flipping. Austin’s path from house hacking and gym franchising to building multi-tenant healthcare projects is a masterclass in deliberate, data-driven investing. Below are the highlights, lessons, and practical takeaways from our conversation.

From Wakeboarding to Real Estate: an unorthodox origin story

Austin’s background is anything but typical. He spent years as a professional wakeboarder, traveling the world and competing. Along the way, he learned discipline, the value of repetition, and how to push through hard days — lessons that translate directly to development and deal execution.

Some early real estate moves set the foundation for everything that followed:

House hacking: Austin signed a master lease, rented bedrooms individually, and used the markup to live for free long enough to save a down payment.
First buy at the market bottom: He purchased his first house in April 2011, which happened to be a market low — a fortunate timing that accelerated his equity building.
Airbnb and event venues: Austin converted some short-term rentals into higher-margin wedding venues and leveraged hospitality operations to increase cash flow.

Scaling with gyms and learning the sales/marketing muscle

Before building a commercial development business, Austin owned multiple Nine Round fitness centers and worked with Gym Launch. That phase taught him operational rigor and, critically, how to market and sell at scale — Facebook ads, landing pages, challenge funnels, and disciplined follow-up.

Two lessons stood out:

Systems matter: repeatable marketing and sales systems drove predictable customer acquisition.
Data beats gut: a demographic and competition analysis changed his site choices — Winter Park looked cool, but the data showed saturation; the other market, which felt less sexy, had a better opportunity.

Why healthcare real estate?

Austin now focuses on site selection and development for healthcare and related uses (dental, dermatology, urgent care, behavioral health, veterinary). His rationale is straightforward:

RPI: recession-resistant, pandemic-resistant, inflation-resistant demand — people always need healthcare.
Predictable tenants: dental and multi-location operators have among the lowest default rates, and many are franchise or corporate-backed with strong credit.
Size and economics: the sweet spot is typically 2,500–5,500 sq ft per provider. Multi-tenant development produces economies of scale that reduce effective rent per square foot.

To illustrate: a 2,500 sq ft freestanding pad might demand $60/sq ft rent, while an inline multi-tenant building could reduce that to roughly $45/sq ft due to shared infrastructure and lower per-unit development costs. Those savings can make projects feasible where single-tenant pads would be prohibitively expensive.

Site selection: data, grocery anchors, and overlays

Austin’s team is national and data-driven. They use paid data sources (e.g., Pitney Bowes) and run a “grocery anchor” overlay to find corridors with strong consumer demand and limited direct competition.

Typical workflow:

Run grocery-anchor and demographic heat maps.
Overlay existing competition and tenancy to find high-demand / low-competition pockets.
If no lease space exists in the ideal spot, evaluate ground-up or redevelopment opportunities.

Because they originate a lot of their own opportunities, Austin’s team wears two hats: broker and developer. That combination lets them bring projects forward that many brokers or pure developers would not pursue.

Development execution and crew selection

Execution speed and cost certainty are paramount. Austin highlighted the importance of using contractors and architects who understand the nuances of healthcare builds (e.g., plumbing, electrical, and medical equipment needs). When teams are inexperienced in this niche, projects slow down and costs creep up, which directly increases required rents and can sabotage feasibility.

“If you haven’t done healthcare-specific buildouts, you don’t know the exact plumbing requirements and electric requirements. The more deals you do, the better you get at managing timelines.”

Refinance > Flip: the “get-rich slow” strategy

Central to Austin’s thesis is the long game. Rather than flip for a higher short-term IRR and trigger capital gains taxes, his preferred path is to develop, stabilize, refinance, and hold. Key points:

Refinancing returns capital to investors without triggering capital gains taxes — investors get paid back earlier and continue to own an appreciating equity stake.
Holding generates long-term appreciation, rent bumps, and principal paydown; it’s “the get-rich slow scheme.”
He typically structures leases as 10-year terms with 5-year extension options and modest rent bumps (Austin prefers 2–3% bumps rather than aggressive 10% jumps to preserve long-term tenant relationships).

From an investor structure standpoint, Austin syndicates deals (not a fund yet). Targeted returns are around 18–19% IRR, with a preferred return paid until a refinancing or other capital event. The goal after sequential refinances: investors often have their principal returned by the five-year rent bump while retaining upside through long-term ownership.

Raising capital and tenant credit

Austin emphasized underwriting tenant strength. He prefers multi-unit franchisees or multi-location corporate operators because they bring solid personal and institutional credit to the lease, which in turn makes bank financing smoother and refinancing easier later.

Banks usually want to see at least half of a center pre-leased before lending on a ground-up project, so Austin’s relationships with national retailers (Panda Express, Chipotle, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, and others) are crucial to getting projects across the finish line.

Originating deals: podcasting, networking, and the seven touches

One practical lever Austin uses to source off-market deals and decision-makers is content and relationship-building. He co-hosts the podcast Helping Healthcare Scale and invites multi-site operators to share their playbooks. The playbook for outreach is classic B2B: connect on LinkedIn, invite to the podcast, build rapport, follow up in person, and then source deals.

“We invite them on the podcast, build a relationship, find out how their business is working and then follow up. That’s the active part of finding off-market deals.”

Mindset: delayed gratification and “The Gap and The Gain”

Austin draws a direct line from athletics to investing. Wakeboarding taught him to grind through bad days, to show up when conditions are poor, and to trust incremental progress. He recommended The Gap and The Gain (Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy) as a framework for avoiding toxic comparison bias:

The Gap = looking at the horizon (where you want to be) and feeling like you’re always behind.
The Gain = looking back at measurable progress and celebrating micro-wins to sustain momentum.

“If you just turn around and look at the gain — how much progress you’ve made a year ago, two years ago — that’s how I keep my sanity.”

Long-term vision

Austin and his partner are explicit about scale: they want to own 100 buildings and build a portfolio to hold for the long term — assets that produce cash flow and pass value to future generations. They’ll flip opportunistic deals in secondary markets, but core, high-conviction locations are intended for buy-and-hold.

Actionable takeaways

Healthcare real estate offers durable demand and strong tenant credit — ideal for conservative commercial portfolios.
Data-driven site selection beats intuition. Use grocery-anchor overlays, demographic heatmaps, and competition analysis to find the best corridors.
Choose partners and contractors with niche expertise in healthcare to control costs and timelines.
Refinance to return capital and defer taxes; holding builds long-term value and recurring income.
Network actively and create content to access decision-makers and off-market opportunities.
Celebrate micro-wins and measure the gain to sustain long-term momentum.

Where to learn more or connect with Austin

If you want to dig deeper into the deals or chat about getting involved, connect with Austin on LinkedIn or check out his podcast, Helping Healthcare Scale. He’s open to sharing deal-level info and advising investors who want to participate in this space.

Final thoughts

Refinancing and holding healthcare-anchored retail is not sexy short-term alpha hunting — it’s a discipline that compounds over time. Austin’s athletic background, operational experience in hospitality and fitness, and a relentless focus on data-driven site selection make his approach a compelling blueprint for investors who prefer steady returns, downside protection, and long-term wealth creation.

If you’re evaluating commercial strategies today — especially in an environment of higher construction costs and elevated interest rates — consider the case for multi-tenant, healthcare-anchored developments and the refinancing-first path to delivering investor capital back early while preserving long-term upside.