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Show Summary
In this conversation, A.J. Peak discusses his unique approach to healthcare real estate, focusing on dental and veterinary buildings. He shares his personal journey from working at McKinsey & Company to building a successful dental business and transitioning into real estate. A.J. emphasizes the importance of scaling operations, building relationships, and leveraging mentorship to achieve success in the competitive landscape of healthcare real estate investment.
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AJ Peak (00:00)
Yeah. And I think I’ve taken that to heart and the second venture that I’ve built. And we just recently got to about a hundred million of assets under management very quickly, much quicker than I got to that size previously. it sounds cliche, but in my earlier years, I honestly did think I knew it all. I wouldn’t say it, but my actions would suggestI kind of could study the situation and come up with the best answer.
Q Edmonds (02:06)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I’m excited to be here today. I’m excited about our guests. I’m excited just to pick his brain. Are they in a medical field, medical real estate, you know,And I’m just excited to just peek further through his lens and for you all to really just glean information from him. I know he’s going to add so much value to the show. And so I am happy to introduce you all to Mr. AJ Peak It’s AJ, how you doing today,
AJ Peak (02:39)
Thank you, doing well. Thank you for having me,Q Edmonds (02:42)
Absolutely,man. Thank you for being here. Listen, I’ll be honest. I kind of want to dive in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is in real estate. I didn’t do it any justice. I want you to dive into that. I want you to also tell us maybe a little bit of an origin story of how you got started within real estate and then tell us what part of the world you’re in, if you don’t mind, and what market you’re out of it in. So, Mr. AJ, sir, you have the floor.
AJ Peak (03:08)
My origin story is connected to very much connected to what I do today. I grew up in rural Minnesota where my father was a dentist, went to school on the East coast. And in my twenties, I was a business undergrad. In my twenties worked for one of the larger strategy consulting firms, McKinsey and Company, mostly in New York and Chicago. And as I was turning 30, I’m 47 for another month, as I turning 30, I thought I knew it all.And, knew if I resigned on good terms, that I was taking me back and I really want to start a business. ⁓ I don’t recommend this. was completely insane that I resigned, from a dream job to start a business. And my father or my family at the time had moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where I reside today. And, he was in his sixties and had a small dental practice that time. And so the dental industry is, cause he’s big group models. So I.
One thing led to another. built a big business plan that build a large dental group, uh, and, kind of tricked my father, convinced him to be my test case was just him and four employees. Um, and so it was, um, turns out, don’t know at all super hard, but in spite of myself, we grew at year over year, uh, to about a $50 million business in terms of revenue, did a majority sale to private equity, continue to run that business and doubled it again. Um,
⁓ having locations throughout Colorado and Texas. And during that journey, we’d be buying dental practices and the dentist often would own the building. And private equity backed healthcare groups traditionally don’t own the real estate and they needed a solution to sell the real estate while they’re selling the practice. So several years ago, I set up with friends and family a kind of a fund to buy the real estate and do what’s called a sales lease back with the private equity back group. ⁓
And as I got experienced doing that, really wanted that to be my next journey. And worked with the board to transition to being coming just a board member of the business I built, which is awesome. And to dedicate my full-time efforts to health, health capital, where we buy medical, triple net lease buildings throughout the country, predominantly dental, but also have a big chunk of veterinary buildings, plastic surgery.
in urgent care buildings throughout about 25 states now.
Q Edmonds (06:23)
Absolutely love it. Thank you for walking us through the journey. Thank you for walking us to what you do up until what you do now. And I kind of want to pick your brain a little bit on kind of how you knew in a sense. And maybe you didn’t know, but let me say it like this. This is how I want to say it. I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments. Right. So as you go through life, there are just some things that stick with you that help you as you continue to grow, as you continue to change.and you continue to take on a new identity. And so your dad was a dentist, you landed your dream job, but then you wanted to transition out of the dream side to go into real estate. So what is it that’s in you that you can identify to know that made you take the risk, make you who you are now, make people trust you, because your dad obviously trusted you, people trusted you to come into partnership with you. So what can you?
say about yourself and identify about you that kind of make you who you are today. Those skills and traits that make people trust you, make you take risks, make you kind of put you in the position you are today.
AJ Peak (07:32)
Yeah, big question to answer, but I think the two inflection points had similarities when loved working at McKinsey and Company and you’re ultimately only working for the CEOs of these sort of global 1000 companies and love the work, but I didn’t always love the fact that they may or may not fall through on recommendations. And so I was an advisor or not kind of the one calling the shots. And I love having the thrill oftaking the risk and following through not just on giving the recommendations, but then owning it. And so really felt compelled to give it a shot. And I think when I built the dental business to a certain size, it was private equity back, I really wanted that experience, but then it became much more a larger operation. You you’re kind of managing by committees and you’ve got some bigger constituent groups in it. It felt a lot more similar.
to my McKinsey days of, you you have recommendations, but I still got to the buy-in of a board and everybody else. And I think, although I was successful at it, was hungry to go back to kind of building a business where it’s me and the team and we can execute and build something that’s ours and kind of move quickly on that front. And so I think both of them were exciting. The opportunities when we started the dental business long ago didn’t even have a
The industry didn’t have a name. Now it does. DSOs or dental service organizations and in the medical real estate. There’s really one other player at scale doing what we’re doing. yet, know, dental and veterinarian, the two largest, particularly dental, largest healthcare vertical in the country. There’s so many opportunity on that front. And that’s exciting to kind of be one of the first and build something in that niche and leverage our experience.
Q Edmonds (09:31)
Yeah, I love it, man. Thank you so much. And I see it. see kind of little bit through your lens of kind of how you’re wired, how you think. And I know you didn’t mention as you was growing the business, you said, you you didn’t know everything. You you bumped up against some some adversity. So I would love to know if you don’t mind maybe sharing the story of some of the adversity that you’ve bumped up to as you was growing.AJ Peak (09:56)
Yeah. And I think I’ve taken that to heart and the second venture that I’ve built. And we just recently got to about a hundred million of assets under management very quickly, much quicker than I got to that size previously. it sounds cliche, but in my earlier years, I honestly did think I knew it all. I wouldn’t say it, but my actions would suggestI kind of could study the situation and come up with the best answer.
And I didn’t reach out to mentors the way that I do now. And I didn’t kind of take a step back and try to get some better wisdom in the beginning. And so I found myself trying to do it all off in the beginning. And now I’m not perfect at it today, but I spend a lot more time kind of the, not what I know, but who I know.
And real estate is, think, great to take advantage of that concept and includes the people that have joined me and my team and just recognizing that there might be a better way to doing this and I don’t need to do it. Can I partner with somebody that could get me there faster or better or do things that I don’t think I enjoy or I’m not as good at? And so I’ve been a lot more focused on the who than the how that I did when I
I built the first business. I think I was, it always in the gears and it was always like, I could sort of figure it out myself. And ⁓ there’s some pros and cons to that, but I think to build a business quicker, with a little more scar tissue, having more of the right who’s is incredible.
Q Edmonds (12:16)
Yeah, AJ man. Thank you, sir. Thank you for that transparency, that transparent answer. I really appreciate that. I really believe that’s going to help a lot of operators that’s watching it. So I appreciate you saying that. Let me ask you, what is the next real goal? Like, what are you looking to solve or scale next?Did you hear the question? think we might have froze for a little bit. Do you need me to repeat the question, Mr AJ?
AJ Peak (12:44)
Yeah, repeat that question one more time.Q Edmonds (12:46)
Okay, absolutely. I was saying what is the next real goal for you? Like what are you looking to solve a scale next?AJ Peak (12:54)
⁓ So we are sourcing dental or medical real estate buildings under triple net lease in really all 50 states. And to do that at scale, ⁓ it’s different than buying a $50 million apartment complex. I need to do 50 of these because they’re all about a million dollars or they’re about a million five. So the thing that we’re trying to solve is how do we source high volume of leads on a weekly basis?So we’ve really breaking down our world to a week. We need so many leads a week, ⁓ leads are potential dental or veterinary buildings, shut the country. How can we get sift through them very quickly, put an offer in that’s competitive. Then ⁓ we’re looking one a week sign a letter of intent, one a week moving the letter of intent to a purchase sales agreement, and then one a week closing on a building.
And so closing on commercial real estate at scale one a week is ⁓ very challenging. ⁓ There’s a lot of local municipality laws and attorneys and title work and all kinds of things that can kind of slow things down. There might be an old gas tank underneath the building and you’ve got to do a different phase one or phase two environmental study. so the big challenge for us in 2026 is just how do we scale that in a ⁓
broader way while sort of maintaining our underwriting kind of risk adjusted ⁓ returns profile. And I love that kind of operational problem. It’s exciting, but it is a challenge ⁓ to work through that kind of size at scale.
Q Edmonds (14:35)
Yeah. Man, not that you need a vote of confidence from me, but I know you’re going to figure it out, right? I think that’s the confidence that you have. think the way your brain works, analytical guy that you are, I know you’re going to figure it out. Like I said, may not need a vote of confidence from me, but I have no doubt you’re going to figure it out. So just putting that out there. Man, you’ve talked about building a team. You talked about reaching out to mentors now, not going at it alone.So just want to put a cap on this and just bring up the word relationships, right? And I just want to get your perspective on relationship building. Is it important? How do you go about it? Has it benefited you? So if you don’t mind, just best put the boat on relationship and relationship building from your perspective.
AJ Peak (16:03)
Yeah, I would say, you know, whether you’re listeners or investors, or listeners or other operators, I’m a great example of that who and that relationships and from sourcing capital, right, if everybody’s trying to find money to buy on real estate, I kind of made the right relationship and it, it just opened up, it solved that problem where I don’t want say we have a perpetual source of capital, but it’s been we’ve been overfunded. ⁓for 12 months in a row. ⁓ Our first real launch in scale is this last year and we raised over 25 million. ⁓ And that wasn’t the limiter, the living factor of growth. Like we could have raised more. ⁓ I met that kind of key person at a conference, I saw them speak and I reached out to them. even hired them at first and then became partners with them. And so I was sort of searching.
and exchanging. ⁓ I didn’t try to be a leech. actually hired them to do some work for me. And then one thing led to another for us to be a partner. ⁓ There’s another person that over the years, ⁓ they had started a large dental group. ⁓ His name’s Justin, very similar to me. ⁓ He found himself as the CFO of a group he started. It’s about a half a billion in revenue size. over the years, we’d exchange
know, problems, we were different parts of the market and we would try to help each other out. And that relationship has now led to him, you know, joining in a real way to help underwrite buildings. He knows the space incredibly well and can understand the risk. And, you know, those are two just examples. And I can think of a few others on the team that it was really relationship building that my team has come together. Then me hanging.
you know, a job posting, if you will. It was really kind of put together that way. And it’s been incredible being able to work with some of these folks.
Q Edmonds (18:13)
I love it. This is Mr. AJ. Is there any topic that we have not brought up that you will want to talk about? Is it anything that I’ve missed? Is it any kind of words of inspiration or motivation or education that you want to leave with people? I just want to know, is there anything else that you wanted to add before we start to wrap it up?AJ Peak (18:34)
I totally believe in the famous quote, you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want. And so people are really welcome to reach out to me. I’ve written a couple of books on the topic of what I do in terms of scaling. You can look up my name, ⁓ scaling, triple net lease assets. If anybody’s in the business of triple net lease, you don’t really stick. There’s so many ways to partner, whether it’s justgiving free advice or partner different ways. There’s a lot of different ways. And I now advise on another fund in the triple net lease space. And so if there’s any way like that, if any of your listeners encourage them to build relationships with me and vice versa, and if I can be helpful to them, I kind of believe in the long run it’ll come back to me.
Q Edmonds (19:21)
Absolutely, I love it. You’re so decedent to come back to you double fold. I believe in that and so I hear you loud and clear. So I know you said you wrote a book. I’m not sure if I heard you give out information on how to get in contact with you. So how can people contact with you? How can people collaborate with you, learn more about you?AJ Peak (19:39)
⁓ two best ways. Just one is email. It’s the letter a, the letter J. So AJ at health wealth, one word dot capital. ⁓ so it’s healthwealth.capital. It’s also our website. And then on LinkedIn, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn. And so people can connect with me. ⁓ AJ peak and you got to do the initials. So a period J period peak on LinkedIn and can connect with me that way as well. But either way, ⁓ happy to be helpful and, people’s different journeys.in real estate.
Q Edmonds (20:10)
Absolutely. Mr. AJ, sir, thank you so much. Thank you for your time, because you know your time is very valuable. So definitely thank you for your time. Thank you for your story, for your transparency. I greatly appreciate that. And then thank you for your perspective, the way you think, your mindset. Thank you for bringing that to this podcast. I appreciate you today,AJ Peak (20:29)
Thank you so much, Que.Q Edmonds (20:31)
Absolutely.So listen, you can’t tell me you didn’t get to value other episodes. You got the value, Mr. AJ. Definitely check him out. Go get his books. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. AJ. So sir, thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a great
