Build Real Estate Communities Rooted in Wellness and Sustainability.

Wellness community real estate model & consultancy built on four pillars: Community, Health, Sustainability, and Education.

For landowners and developers who want a genuinely healthy community rather than a wellness-branded one, ROOTS is the wellness real estate consultancy led by someone who has spent 45 years building and running the wellness infrastructure other consultancies only design on paper. Grant Gamble has personally developed, built, and operated two dozen-plus wellness campuses and clinics across Australia and the U.S. ROOTS brings that operating experience to the masterplanning table.

ROOTS is a wellness community real estate model built on four pillars: Community, Health, Sustainability, and Education. Most developments add a yoga studio and call themselves a wellness community. ROOTS starts from a 16-point framework covering everything from water security to emergency preparedness, and applies it at every stage, from site selection through to the people who move in.

Wellness real estate is the fastest-growing sector in a $6.8 trillion global wellness economy, commanding a 10 to 25 percent price premium worldwide, with individual developments like Serenbe in Georgia reaching 37 to 55 percent. The same trend is already playing out here: Australia’s wellness real estate sector grew 13.9 percent post-pandemic to $36.12 billion in 2023, and Sydney’s One Sydney Harbour has sold 95 percent of its wellness-anchored towers for more than $4 billion.

ROOTS helps landowners and developers capture that premium properly, with a proven community model, a founder who has built the wellness infrastructure at the centre of it, and a flagship project already underway in Byron Shire, NSW.

What We Do

Always guided by our ROOTS Canvas & Covenants.

Why ROOTS

A wellness industry pioneer since 1985, Grant has led the design, development, and construction of over two dozen wellness campuses, clinics, and mixed-use precincts across Australia and the US, from a 22-acre greenfield wellness campus in Pennsylvania to Heartfield, a regenerative wellness community he’s now helping to develop in Byron Shire, NSW.

Starting in 1997, he helped introduce one of the world’s first «Exercise as Medicine» models, spanning ground-up builds, big-box retail conversions, and hospital-integrated fitness campuses in partnership with hospitals like Johns Hopkins and Sentara.

20+ years building the wellness campuses and clinics most consultancies only design on paper.

See the projects →

Articles by Grant

ROOTS Wellness Community Real Estate Model

Why a Wellness Community?

health costs without committing to a dramatic transformation of where and how we live. We must shift our resources and our investments into the places that give us the best returns on our health – that is, our homes and communities.

Return on Investment & Return on Wellness.

The pandemic has caused a mass exodus of people from large cities all over the world in search for healthier places and healthier WAYS to live. As a result, there is a shortage of real estate in suburban and rural areas as demand keeps rising.

With Australia being the third largest market for Wellness Real Estate (2017) and number one per capita in the world, the  potential Return On Investment is clearcut. The premiums detailed below offer powerful motivation for investment, but hopefully an equally compelling reason for investing in a Conscious Wellness Community model is the Return On Wellness.

Source: Global Wellness Institute

It has been further demonstrated in the U.S. that homebuyers and renters will pay more for built environment features such as those detailed in the ROOTS model. These price premiums range from:

• 3-12% for nearby open space, greenbelts, and conservation areas; 

• 4-20% for nearby parks and multi-use trails
• 5-15% for recreational programming and amenities within the community 

ROOTS Comparison

An example of a community with some of the elements of the ROOTS model is “Serenbe” in Georgia, US. Homes have been achieving a 37-55% premium over other developments in that area.

Based on a two-phase survey by the Auckland Council, homebuyers in New Zealand would prefer:

• Natural light in their homes (98%)
• Neighborhood trees (93%)
• Easy access to shops (92%)
• Proximity to a park or reserve (83%)
• Walking distance to a community center (44%)
• A nearby fitness center (37%)

A study the UK Green Building Council showed that:

• 90% of those buyers and renters surveyed would like a home that “does not compromise their health and wellbeing”
• And nearly 30% said they would be willing to pay more for this type of home

In addition to the premiums being achieved in the residential elements of wellness communities, interest in wellness tourism has grown significantly across the globe. 

The ROOTS Solution

Elements of the ROOTS Wellness Real Estate Model include:

• An intergenerational community founded on community, wellness and purpose.
• An emphasis on affordability and housing diversity with designs including small footprint homes, townhomes and lofts, and multigenerational homes.
• Lease to buy options for workforce and low-income households.
• A world-class biophilic wellness center interwoven with a modern social club.
• A non-denominational place of worship.
• Numinous Architecture underwritten by low-impact site development principles.
• Reduced carbon footprint and sustainable biophilic building practices.
• Leveraging technology to complement our circadian rhythms through the built environment.

• Foot, bike and scooter friendly design with a pedestrian only Village Center.
• Rhythmic events and programs including weekly markets, concerts and art exhibitions.
• Rainwater harvesting from structures and impervious surfaces.
• A focus on natural lighting and fresh air circulation.
• Nature preserves.
• Predominantly timber and bamboo  structures to reduce carbon footprint of the development.

Other amenities, based on context:

• Social club that includes meeting spaces and fibreoptic network for entrepreneurs and creatives to work and mingle in private and shared spaces
• Destination retreat and sabbatical amenities and short-term accommodations
• Mindfulness spaces and seating areas interwoven into the landscape
• Wellness Hotel featuring Spa with Ayurvedic Treatments
• Retirement and Assisted Living and “longevity center”
• A “Waldorf” school for residents and surrounding communities
• An integrative wellness clinic featuring a multi-dimensional group of integrative “wellcare” providers
• Virtual programming community

Highlights of the ROOTS model that can directly contribute to health outcomes and impact healthy lifestyle choices include:

• Making movement the default option with smart infrastructure and neighborhood design which promotes walking and biking through convenient and accessible paths and lanes.
• Providing attractive and natural public recreation spaces, interconnected paths and walking/biking trails, aquatics options, outdoor courts, fields and activities that encourage engagement and interaction among community members.
• Promoting better sleep, rest and stress reduction by reducing commutes, encouraging movement, conscious lighting choices in residences and community buildings, and conscious sound attenuation throughout the development.
• Promoting native plants and landscaping, edible landscaping, refraining from chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

The Business Case for ROOTS : a true wellness community real estate model

• U.S. based real estate developers have shown premiums for wellness-branded, single-family homes returning 5-35% more than average (most reported the higher side of that range).
• Investors have also seen  a 7-10% premium for wellness rentals.
• Resort operators have seen a 15-30% average daily rate premium for wellness-branded hotels. 

Developers also reported that “well-homes” sell far faster than their traditional equivalents” (GWI Research now suggests 10-25% faster).

Business principles, market characteristics and values (competition, diversification, entrepreneurship, innovation, and a focus on the bottom line) need to co-exist and work with values on which this community model is based.

The core business model includes two key elements:

1. An operating strategy that includes internal organizational structure and external partnerships that are crucial for creating the communities intended impact; and,
2. A resource strategy that defines where and on what terms the organization will acquire the resources (financial and human) it needs to do its work.

The premise of this model is the balancing the generation of both social value (measurable impact, measured as Return On Wellness) and economic value (revenue, measured as Return On Investment).

Internationally, recent surveys demonstrate that healthy home features are in high demand and as a subset and early indicator, homes with green certification labels and energy-efficient features have achieved sales premiums of up to 10% in countries around the world over the last 10-15 years.

Unlike most wellness real estate models, ROOTS has built in annuity streams that are not dependent on long-term real estate sales, land availability, or ongoing development.

ROOTS Economic Model