In today’s commercial real estate market, investors are searching for assets that combine predictable income, downside protection, and meaningful upside—even amid higher rates and economic uncertainty. One niche quietly delivering on all three is childcare net lease real estate. In this episode, we sit down with Grant Gary, President of Brokerage Services at The Woodmont Company, to explore why this asset class is drawing serious attention from sophisticated investors targeting returns approaching 20% IRR.
Grant breaks down what makes childcare centers fundamentally different from traditional retail and office investments. From long-term triple-net leases that shift operational risk away from ownership to strong demographic demand driven by working families, childcare real estate behaves more like essential infrastructure than discretionary commercial space. The conversation dives into underwriting discipline, tenant quality, lease structures, and why execution—not just cap rate—ultimately determines performance.
This episode goes beyond theory and gets practical. Whether you’re an investor looking to redeploy capital, a broker advising clients on exit strategies, or a capital raiser seeking resilient yield with impact, Grant shares how experienced dealmakers think about risk-adjusted returns, market timing, and building durable wealth through net lease childcare investments.
Episode Highlights Here:
Brett
Before we jump into this episode, I want to invite you to join our community to help you become a better steward scale to billions and ultimately give more or all of it away. All I want
you to do is to click the subscribe button right now. I love your support. It’s incredible to see your comments, and we’re just getting started. I can’t wait to go on this journey with you.
Thank you so much for subscribing. It means the world to me. Welcome to the builders billions podcast, where we got successful entrepreneurs and investors on their journey from millions to billions. And we believe that the key to scaling and compounding your wealth starts every single day with the mindset and practice of stewardship over ownership and applying billionaire biblical principles. Our ultimate goal is to have you scale and compound your wealth and life so you can give more all of the way to help MVPs, the most vulnerable people. My name is Brett Swarts. In every episode, I’m joined by the world’s top entrepreneurs, millionaires and billionaires, and they share their secrets, wisdom and insights with us, so we can all level up our faith, our impact, our compounding interest and opportunity to grow our wealth and life. I’m so excited about our next guest. He’s out of the great state of Texas and the Fort Worth area, and he specializes in helping others build wealth in a way through real estate. He’s the president of brokerage services with the Woodmont company, and they’ve got offices in Dallas, Orange County, Phoenix, and he’s responsible for the management operations of the brokerage department. And come reach department, encompassing a retail portfolio active in 34 states, exceeding 23 million of GLA In addition, he’s focused on the development implementation of the strategic growth initiatives for the for the for the company. And since joining Woodmont two 2008 he has continued to work to bring added value to each client and customer in all
phases of the commercial real estate transaction process. In short, he’s an expert in commercial real estate investment brokerage and so much more. Please welcome the show
with me. Grant. Gary grant, how we doing?
Grant
Brett, we’re doing well, excited to be here. Appreciate the opportunity and the consideration with your audience.
Brett
Absolutely grateful to have you and for our listeners, keeping you know for the first time, would you give us just a little bit more about your story and your current focus?
Grant
Yeah, certainly happy to do it. You did a good job summarizing there. But as noted, one of the principles here at Woodmont, a short background on Woodmont company was co founded in1980 we are a full service, retail focused commercial real estate firm, as you said, is headquartered here the Dallas Fort Worth area. But over the life of the company, have
operated coast to coast. Operate three primary divisions within the company, a brokerage division, development arm, and then an asset management, property management arm within the brokerage division, one of the roles that that I’m involved with on a day-to-day basis. We’ve got a project leasing team. We have tenant rep team, capital markets as well investment sales on the development front, which I know we’ll be talking about today in particular, over the life of the company, we’ve developed 15 million square feet, primarily of retail shopping centers, and that’s across 34 states, and actually started with a relationship in the early days with Toys Us, and when they were in their heyday of expansion, they were an anchor to a number of shopping centers. And, you know, like everything else we did, our first project with toys, we were successful. That opened a door to another opportunity, that then led to relationships with the Rosses, the TJ Maxx is the altar, the PetSmart, Petco’s, you know, many of those anchor tenants. And so, through that process, again, developed, I think, over 50 twice RS anchored centers over the life the company. At the same time, about six, seven years ago, we had an opportunity in the childcare space to expand our single tenant Net Lease developmentdevelopment platform. We’d actually worked in the childcare space, starting in tenant rep division here in DFW for a group called kitty Academy just over 15 years ago. I’ve been with the company 16years now, myself, and at that time, Kiddie Academy still was one of the leaders in early childhood education. They only had, you know, one location here in DFW, and we were fortunate to be able to help them in locating their first location. Fast forward to six, seven year sago, they were looking for a development partner that could scale with them programmatically around the country, in a build a suit program. A lot of their growth had been individual franchisee development, or perhaps landowners just doing a one-time Bill to suit. But there was so much growth, there was such a need for quality childcare across the country. You know, their biggest hurdle was real estate and construction development got it.
Brett
That’s something we’re going to dive on that in a second. This is Sue good. So amazing background, tons of experience, right? And, and, and we’re going to dive into to a particular, basically single tenant, net lease and and opportunities for build to suit for these so if you like this little, short clip of the interview I just did, click over here to watch the full interview. And please don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much, everybody.
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About Grant Gary
Grant Gary is the President of Brokerage Services at The Woodmont Company, a nationally recognized commercial real estate firm headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. In his role, Grant leads the firm’s brokerage operations, overseeing strategy, execution, and growth across investment sales, landlord representation, and tenant advisory. With a career spanning more than a decade in commercial real estate, he is known for building high-performing brokerage teams and delivering consistent results for institutional and private clients across multiple asset classes.
Grant brings deep expertise in net lease investments, retail real estate, and portfolio-level strategy, having advised on transactions and assignments across dozens of U.S. markets. He is especially recognized for his disciplined underwriting approach, market insight, and ability to align investor objectives with long-term value creation. A graduate of Texas Christian University with a degree in finance and real estate, Grant combines analytical rigor with relationship-driven dealmaking—making him a trusted advisor to investors seeking both durable income and strategic growth.
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