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From Wakeboarding to Real Estate Success

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

Release Date: 02/18/2025

The Crash You Won’t See Coming — Because It’s Already Started show art The Crash You Won’t See Coming — Because It’s Already Started

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

The Real Estate Cycle: A Warning for 2026   Insights from Phil Anderson on the Coming Real Estate Market Crash In my conversation with renowned economist Phil Anderson, you will gain unprecedented insight into the mechanics of real estate cycles and why we are right on the precipice of the next major real estate market crash.   Anderson, author of "The Secret Life of Real Estate and Banking," presents a compelling case that combines economic theory with historical precedent to paint a picture of where we stand today – and where we’re headed tomorrow.   The...

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Real Estate's Margin for Error is Gone show art Real Estate's Margin for Error is Gone

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

The Margin of Error Has Vanished: What CRE Investors Should Be Watching Now Commentary on a conversation with John Chang, Senior Vice President and National Director, Research and Advisory Services, Marcus & Millichap   The New CRE Investment Mandate: Survive First, Then Thrive “The margin of error has narrowed to virtually zero.” This was John Chang’s stark assessment of today’s commercial real estate environment – an era marked by fragile capital markets, rising Treasury yields, policy instability, and speculative hangovers from a decade of cheap money. According to...

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Real Estate's #1 Rule: Don't Lose Money! show art Real Estate's #1 Rule: Don't Lose Money!

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

Leyla Kunimoto brings a rare and unfiltered perspective to today’s commercial real estate conversation: that of a full-time individual LP who writes publicly about her investment decisions. She’s not a sponsor, a capital raiser, or a fund manager; she’s an investor allocating her own capital and speaking candidly about what she sees in the market.   Through her newsletter Accredited Investor Insights, Leyla connects with hundreds of other LPs and GPs, giving her a uniquely well-informed view of how sentiment is shifting, how sponsors are adapting (or not), and why many individual...

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How to Survive the Coming Real Estate Storm show art How to Survive the Coming Real Estate Storm

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

How to Survive the Coming Real Estate Storm – What Sean Kelly-Rand Learned at Lehman   For the experienced real estate investor or sponsor, this is a masterclass in what really matters.   When Lehman Brothers unraveled in 2008, it exposed a truth that many in the real estate world still prefer to ignore: even the most sophisticated capital structures can implode when the cost of capital and access to liquidity are misunderstood – or worse, taken for granted. My podcast/YouTube show guest today, Sean Kelly-Rand, didn’t just watch that collapse unfold; he lived through it...

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Navigating Multifamily CRE in a Volatile Environment show art Navigating Multifamily CRE in a Volatile Environment

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

Navigating Multifamily CRE in a Volatile Environment Insights from Paul Fiorilla, Director of U.S. Research at Yardi Matrix   Paul Fiorilla offers a data-driven view of today’s commercial real estate (CRE) landscape using the vast resources he has at his disposal at Yardi.   While market sentiment may be growing more optimistic, Fiorilla acknowledges investors should separate short-term mood from long-term fundamentals. His perspective, rooted in close analysis of multifamily data and macro conditions, is both pragmatic and cautionary: yes, there’s capital on the sidelines...

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The Real Risk to Real Estate Today show art The Real Risk to Real Estate Today

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

The Dollar Standard, Global Liquidity, and the Coming Economic Reckoning In my expansive and highly accessible conversation with renowned economist Richard Duncan, we discuss the logic behind his long-running critique of the international monetary system, a system Richard calls the Dollar Standard where he explains why current U.S. policy moves, the system could come crashing down.   The Origins of the Dollar Standard and America’s “Exorbitant Privilege” The Dollar Standard, Duncan explains, evolved out of the collapse of the Bretton Woods system (implemented after WWII) in...

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Where Are We in the Real Estate Cycle? show art Where Are We in the Real Estate Cycle?

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

When it comes to understanding real estate cycles, few voices carry as much weight as Prof. Glenn Mueller, of Denver University. With over 40 years in the real estate industry and more than three decades of publishing the Market Cycle Monitor – used by institutional investors, developers, and academics alike – his data-driven framework is one of the most respected in commercial real estate.   In my conversation with Prof. Mueller, he shared where each property type stands today, what signals matter most, and how CRE professionals should be thinking about the road ahead.   ...

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The Illusion of Diversification show art The Illusion of Diversification

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

Unlocking Private Market Potential: Key Insights from Jim Dowd of North Capital   Jim Dowd, CEO of North Capital, brings four decades of experience across the sell-side and buy-side to my discussion with him on a topic top of mind for commercial real estate sponsors and investors: how to navigate a rapidly shifting capital landscape where regulation, liquidity, investor behavior, and macro volatility collide.   Here are the key insights from our conversation – designed specifically to you make better, more informed investment decisions in today’s market.   1. Private...

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What the Debt Markets are Telling Us Now show art What the Debt Markets are Telling Us Now

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

The Pulse of the Debt Markets — with Orest Mandzy, CRE Direct Capital market confidence is cautiously returning, but undercurrents of risk remain. In my wide-ranging conversation with Orest Mandzy, Managing Editor of Commercial Real Estate Direct, we discuss what recent CMBS issuance tells us about liquidity, why delinquency headlines may be misleading, and how sponsors can position themselves amid policy shocks and structural market shifts.   Liquidity Is Back — But Driven by Giants CMBS issuance jumped 110% in Q1 2025, totaling nearly $37 billion. While that headline suggests a...

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Rates, Risk, and the Return of Discipline show art Rates, Risk, and the Return of Discipline

The Real Estate Market Watch - current events through a real estate lens.

What the Debt Markets Are Telling Us — and Why Sponsors Should Listen Insights from Lisa Pendergast, Executive Director, CREFC   In today’s capital markets, where debt is more expensive, less available, and slower to move, understanding how credit flows work has become just as important as understanding your deal. That’s why I sat down with Lisa Pendergast, Executive Director of the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council (CREFC) – a central figure in the $5 trillion CRE debt markets – to ask what the institutions upstream are seeing, and what that means for those of us...

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More Episodes
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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Explore the world of real estate capital allocators—a fresh approach to financing that’s reshaping the industry.
 
In this series, I talk with allocators, investors, sponsors, and service providers to give you an inside look at this fast-growing space.
 
PLUS, subscribe to my free newsletter for real estate investors and gain access to:
* Introductions to sponsors, allocators, and investment opportunities.
* Insights drawn from my 30+ years of experience in real estate investing.
* Hacks and tactics for raising capital to help you scale your real estate portfolio.
 
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