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Larry Connor on Building a High-Performance Real Estate Business

Summary

Richard C. Wilson speaks with Larry Connor, founder of The Connor Group, about building a real estate business through operational discipline, learning from failure and putting people first. Connor describes starting with partners and one investor, then developing a model for apartment communities that challenged industry norms. He explains why he sees the business as operating businesses, not simply real estate, and how measurement and training work alongside accountability. The conversation also covers hiring, culture and investor alignment, as well as long-term improvement and sharing ownership with employees. Connor reflects on the value of aiming high, staying persistent through uncertainty and defining success beyond financial results. Founders can use the discussion to examine their processes and team; real estate operators can consider how training and service standards affect performance; family offices and investors can think more carefully about manager alignment, operating capability and the values behind wealth creation.

Key Moments

Strong operations and aligned people can matter as much as the asset itself. In this Family Office Club conversation, I asked Larry Connor how he built The Connor Group and what founders and investors can learn from its approach. His account starts with a small beginning and develops into a practical case study in reinvention, accountability and disciplined management.

Connor said he entered real estate with partners and one investor, without prior experience in the industry. The business began with an idea to operate apartment communities differently. He described early mistakes as part of a long learning process: own the error, learn from it, change the approach and keep improving. For investors, that makes the quality of a manager's response to setbacks worth examining alongside the original plan.

Manage the Business Behind the Asset

One of Connor's clearest points was that his firm thinks of itself as an operator of businesses that happen to be apartment communities. That framing shifts attention from acquisition alone to daily service, maintenance and staffing, while tracking performance. A family office reviewing real estate opportunities can use the same lens. Ask who runs the operation, how work is measured and what happens when results fall short.

Connor described setting standards that challenged common practice in the apartment sector. The aim was to improve output while teaching employees how the company expected work to be done. That approach calls for clear measures and consistent coaching. It also requires a willingness to test assumptions about how a property team should function. For founders, the lesson is to distinguish between a useful industry convention and a habit that persists without a strong reason.

Investors can connect this operating focus to their own process for evaluating managers. A compelling property or market does not explain how a sponsor handles resident needs, maintenance or employee accountability. Family offices assessing a property manager can ask for specific examples of how the operating model works and how the team learns from missed targets. Our guide on how family offices evaluate fund managers offers a related framework for that review.

Learn, Adjust and Address People Problems

Connor said the firm treats improvement as ongoing work. The process he described is not a promise that every decision will be right. It is a way to recognize when something is wrong, take responsibility and make a change. Founders can build that habit by reviewing important decisions on a regular basis, recording what they expected and comparing it with what happened.

People decisions deserve the same direct attention. Connor described people as a major source of both business problems and solutions. When someone lacks the needed commitment or capability, waiting too long to address the mismatch can make matters harder for everyone. For a family office, this applies to internal staff and outside managers. Clear responsibilities and candid performance conversations help a team respond before a small gap becomes an operating pattern.

Connor also spoke about hiring outside the traditional industry talent pool and then putting substantial effort into training. That choice can bring different habits and perspectives, but it places a real burden on leaders to teach good work, measure it and recognize it. A family office building its own team should be clear about the skills it needs in-house and what can be provided by outside partners. Our resource on which roles a new family office hires first can help frame that decision.

Put Culture Into Daily Decisions

Connor described culture as a pattern of actions, not a statement on a wall. In practice, that means people see what the organization values through whom it hires, how it trains, what it rewards and whether leaders address poor performance. A family office can use the same test. Its stated principles become credible when they guide investment review, service standards and decisions about people.

He also discussed sharing ownership with employees who contribute to the business. His account presents participation as a way to recognize people who act like owners and strengthen their connection to results. The structure of any ownership arrangement depends on the specific circumstances, so founders should talk with their attorney and CPA about legal and tax details. The general lesson is to make incentives understandable and connect them to responsibilities people can influence.

Connor's philanthropy comments extended his view of responsibility beyond financial results. He described supporting children and communities through programs and giving. Family offices can treat those commitments as part of deliberate planning, with clear aims and a way to understand whether the work is reaching the people it intends to help. Our guide to how family offices handle philanthropy explores ways families can organize this work.

Build a Plan That Can Keep Improving

Connor's advice for founders and investors centered on having capable people, a plan and sound processes, sustained by perseverance. He did not describe starting with a fixed prediction of the firm's eventual scale. The account instead points to taking the next step, learning from the result and making thoughtful changes. That is useful for family offices, where investment policy, staff capacity and operating plans need to fit the family's aims and resources.

In my experience, ambition is most useful when it is paired with a process that lets you assess progress honestly. Set a clear direction, decide what evidence matters and give the team a way to raise problems early. Then revisit the plan as the business and family needs change. If you are weighing the structure and operating demands of a dedicated office, use our family office readiness score to organize your initial questions.

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Full Transcript

Machine captions from the video, lightly cleaned. Names and terms may be misspelled; the video is the authority.

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0:01 great welcome Larry um thank you appreciate you being here so we did a uh an interview virtually recently and it went it went great and we appreciate that and uh Larry got started in 1991 he had a couple Partners started in the real estate space uh he had only one investor when he got started he owned nothing uh he was running on borrowed time and the only thing he had was an idea to com to bring a completely different model to the business of apartments and and multif family um he bought out his partners and created the Connor group in 2003 and today they're a thriving real estate investment firm specializing in luxury apartment communities with over $ billion dollar in Assets in 18 different markets it's one of the few people that's been in outer space as well as the deep sea and uh now he's been to a family office super Summit so thanks for thanks for being here appreciate it thank you yeah what else would you add about your background just uh maybe about anything related to where you grew up or family or anything like that that you think would be good for everybody to know before we get started on the the questions so I was not a good student I barely made it through high school I lived in the stable still today by the way plugged for the Midwest great

1:19 area didn't have to worry about going and uh touring campuses and colleges and things like that because my grades were so bad but in the state of Ohio if you graduated from high school there was one School Ohio University that had to take you and literally when you got there the orientation they said look to your right look to your left one or both of those people won't be here at the end of the year and they were too had a 50% fluck out R in the first year so I managed to get in there and I managed to stay in kind of got going and turned it around although uh if you said well what was your background Finance economics business none of the above I was an English major with a concentration in Shakespearean literature which essentially qualifies me for nothing so uh We've owned and operated eight different businesses seven of them very successful one a computer business was a failure but we learned from all of those we've actually owned three technology companies and uh

2:37 I came out of actually the computer industry when we started uh the Conor group in 1991 awesome yeah appreciate you sharing all that that's great especially the part about being a a bad student you know in your childhood it's almost the only grade you get on your value on planet Earth is like what's your grade in school right it's like um let's do another sports or Boy Scouts Etc so uh what was the turning point um of massive increased momentum was there some point where like once you started doing that one thing or acquired that one asset everything just took off yeah we believe that it's a process so I think the process was one of failure so we started in 91 I and my partners were not from the industry we knew something about operating businesses and so we said we're just not going to pay attention to Conventional systems processes Norms beliefs and chart our own path we did a lot of things right but we made a number of mistakes we were not afraid to make a mistake not Reckless but after thought the difference was from those failures we owned them we didn't make any excuses

3:54 we learn from them we change quickly and we just continue contined to get better and better and better and that's been a some 32 33e process in fact today it's interesting uh we did actually our first Acquisitions in 92 so in our 32 year and in 2024 we had a Matra of change simplify and improve and we have 90 plus different initiatives going on this year keep in mind our size we're about 440 Associates some of which are things we made a mistake should have change five six seven years ago and others are new and Innovative we believe you've got to reinvent yourself and you've got to by definite if you want to be elite you want to be exceptional you've got to be different and not just surface different like disruptive different and so for us it's always a learning process that's that's awesome feedback um many times in this room we meet a lot of people per year and if you're saying the same thing as everyone else I don't know how you get a reply from anybody or get a partner engaged so

5:11 I think that's such good feedback for for everybody here in the room to hear investor or on the founder side um what's a million-dollar strategy that that Founders and investors here in their room could get from you on stage today that you'd be happy to share yeah so I wouldn't think about a million dollars that's the hope for outcome I would think more about the process and what I would do which is what we do by the way we have a real estate firm about 5 billion in assets we also own uh an investment firm small boutique we manage about 750 million it's essentially just our money we invest in public companies and private companies and we have high expectations in everything we do so if I was like many of you out there either managing wealth or creating wealth I would think about what results have I achieved historically and are they what I want so let's say for example you'd like to compound at 14% you're only compounding at eight well I'd go back and I would really do a vigorous self-inventory of what's my beliefs what's my philosophies what's my strategies and why aren't I getting them and then what I would do is

6:31 I would try to make some thoughtful planful changes in probably systems processes analytics Etc in our view in our experience if you do the right processes and you have the right people and you have the right plan the outcomes will generally take care of themselves interesting so the Founders a Home Depot they set out to have a thousand Home Depot before they had one many people say like Arnold have a a Clear Vision and just stick to that and work your butt off till it happens but for you in 1991 1992 did you have these huge goals or were you just doing what founder Nvidia says just knock out what's right in front of you keep going down that path and you don't worry about the long-term goals or Ambitions was it like you're ambition to have 5 billion in real estate and you knew you'd get there one day or no that would be no and no and so we just started down the path we wanted to be successful we knew that we couldn't do it ourselves we always had a fundamental belief in people and plans and culture and so we started doing that and it was kind of one step at a time and we really

7:50 focused on you know uh our operating our business real estate for us by the way here's a differentiator people actually ask us yeah okay technically we're in the real estate business but we actually would tell you we're not what does that mean we think that we are professional operators of operating businesses that just happen to be apartment communities so we actively run them like a business we also think we've gotten to be pretty good uh investors and so that was really our goal and ultimately L we had a mindset of a very performance orientation and putting the investor first a lot of people talk about that but if you look at how they structure their deals and things they're not that way ours are very performance Orient if you don't get EXT return we get nothing because we deserve nothing and with that mindset of investor first and not having just you know One Good Year anybody can have one good year but if if you look at us over 32 years our average annual IR return to investors after fees is

9:11 slightly over 30% W and if you look at over for example The Last 5 Years it's like 38% we've done somebody was asking me 241 I think Acquisitions over that 32-year period of time of Department communities we lost money on eight now I can tell you that's a lot better batting average than what we do in the public you know investing world right makes sense so um back to your earlier comments about breaking the mold I remember when we were on the phone you talked about how other people would hire a maintenance crew and they'll handle six tickets a day and you were like no we're going to do 20 tickets a day and you keep on breaking assumptions like that on how other people did it at other apartments and as a result you'd D more younger green people and taught them how you wanted to do it I I believe you said you can talk to that whole point about breaking expectations and molds and so we hire nobody from the industry our site people manager sales service nobody why because we tried early on to hire a few people and they one thought we were crazy two they couldn't change their habits and beliefs so we finally said this isn't going to

10:27 work by the way it makes it much more difficult to find those right people and then you're going to have to invest a lot more in training and we invest millions and millions a year in just training our people but ultimately if you want to be exceptional you just can't be like everybody else you've got to be smart different and so yeah for example in the industry they're called workers go out and do something in an apartment typically depending upon who you talk to at somewhere between 6 and 10 per day our technicians do 20 to 25 a day and so it's measured and we do a lot of accountability but we also do a lot of teaching and a lot of reward and recognition right awesome um what would be a a costly mistake that you've had to learn the hard way that you could share with investors Founders here in the room that they could avoid just by hearing you say it well we don't have enough time we got 8 minutes left we'd be here for a long time but but let me just give you want we all try hard to hire the right people by the way we believe that's

11:43 foundational we think 90% of your problems are people problems and 90% of your Solutions are people and so the mistake that we made and we see lots of other people make you go out you hire someone and they're the wrong person they lack the competency they lack the commitment whatever it may be honestly truthfully identifying that that's a problem and then making a change which is better for you and better for them in the long run that's a mistake that we see not only ourselves but most businesses make right great appreciate that do you want to talk a bit about the culture book that you've been you know generous enough to give um everyone here in the room the importance of culture why you thought it'd be important to give that out and and what you use it for so we believe that culture is fundamental and foundational and so we believe that if you get a group of people together that any business is a team sport it's not an ie Sport and we get people who have the same commitments the same philosophies

13:01 the same belief I.E the same culture and we all work together and we don't set limitations that we aim high we can do the impossible and so about seven or eight years ago someone said well God you guys ought to write a book about your culture well we didn't do it the publish it we did it actually for all of our Associates and then we updated it three or four years ago so if you said well who are you and who is your F you read that it's a simple read and whatever 30 minutes later you you kind of know who we are by the way we think culture is based upon actions and deeds a lot of people talk culture people have got a pla up on the wall or a mission statement no no no no no it's really liveed by actions and Dees um I've heard several people say oh uh billionaires. you're interviewing these billionaires reading their books like don't those people just get lucky what would you say to someone who uh who says that huh uh it doesn't work that way exactly there is no short easy

14:24 path on the road to success and success is by your own def you can maybe get lucky but what's enduring what really lasts the long term and it's probably going to be rooted in people and grit and perseverance right exactly um so you've been quoted as saying that we have a fundamental responsibility to share wealth uh why is that important how are you doing this with employees and through your your nonprofit and kids and communities yeah we think benchmarks mile marks ERS Financial results are extremely important but we don't think that's the only thing that's important we personally believe if you've been fortunate and successful that you have both the opportunity and we would argue the obligation to share the we and so we do that a couple of different ways one uh kids and Community Partners were really anchored in underserved kids we have programs locally regionally nationally a couple of them very revolutionary we started the first private school ever in the stable Ohio non-denominational exclusively

15:43 focused on under resource and the results we're getting are transformative that's a program we're going to try to take Nationwide the other thing is besides that and we'll invest in kids and Community we we call it philanthropic investing by the way other people would call it donating uh we're going to do about 800 million dollar in the next 10 years and the programs we're involved in on the on the business side it's an interesting phenomena again we believe you ought to share the wealth so we have a partner program we have 71 partners of our 400 plus Associates and it's not just seite it's anybody in the organization so for example people at the properties sales service management we actually have two or three what we call groundskeepers there are people who sweep the parking lots and pick up trash who partner because they are exceptional in what they do and by the way no delution to our investors all of this ownerships comes from directly from me so they're a full partner in that endeavor because they make a difference and if you get 71 people out there in the field acting like owners you can

17:01 really leverage it two other the thoughts though one you have to restify once a year so you got to be exemplary in your job you got to help other people and you got to be a role mom and we regularly enforce those standards the second thing is I've always been a little bit surprised with a lot of private business owners and so we look at it you know if it's just you or a small group maybe your pie can be this big but if you get a bunch of owners maybe you give away 10 15 20% of the ownership the pie can literally be that big and so our argument is wouldn't you rather have 85% of this pie than 100% of this right great excellent appreciate you sharing that so um you've completed some remarkable things like I said during your bio in the same year going to outer space in the deep sea what personal how how personal Endeavors like that kind of influenced your business um and impacted it so in all those we will only do that if there's both challenges and Purpose By the way it's the subset to that we got to be able to do them safely and

18:19 successfully well isn't that the same thing in business you know you're going to go out and especially if you want to do extraordinary things yeah it's going to be a challenge it's going to be difficult there's going to be adversity there's going to be obst but there's got to be a Purpose By the way you got to Define what your own purpose is right and so there's been a lot of crossover and learned experiences and almost by definition you're going to end up way outside of your comfort zone well if you're trying to blaze new trails in investing or trying to come up with better ways to have higher returns for your investors you're going to be blazing and you're going to probably get uncomfortable and you're going to sail in unchartered Waters but it the more you do it it's not easy but it gets maybe a little easier right got it um what is it that has not come up yet in this interview about your personality your personal values or your mindset that most people would not know about you that you think is really core to your success as a Founder that you've been able to scale you talked many times about being different breaking the mo breaking the mold obviously that takes some courage Etc but what hasn't come up in the interview that you think would be helpful for people to hear that that helps you stand out and execute at a

19:35 high level well first of off Richard I think you've done a fine job on the questions but maybe an offshoot so one of the things that we've learned is it's not how much money you have we would argue it's about the four pigs you have the right group of people by the way that could be a team of four 400 or 4,000 do you have a plan have you developed your own processes Trends analytics things like that and lastly do you have perseverance and maybe passion if you have all of those P's we think your chances for Success are very good great um my last planned question here and then we'll get to anything else you'd like to share and how people could keep in touch potentially is um you know what is the best advice you could give someone who wants to build a high performing business it could be an investment business or an operating business this whole interview has been pretty much answering that question but is there anything else that you want to add to that yeah so no it's it's a good uh last question so aim

20:54 high don't set lemons someone told me some years ago you will never outperform your own self-image think about that you'll never outperform your own self-image so if you really believe even in the absence of facts that you can well I think you got a good chance to do it by the way on the other side if you believe you cannot well you're probably right on that front too right when people tell me that they can't do something I always say not with that attitude right if they already have that idea in their mind they're not going to do it right amen amen yeah or like one I also like is nobody it's very rare that someone's going to take what you're doing more seriously than you do yourself they're not going to be more passionate about it than you are right so um anything else you want to add uh to the interview that you had planned to get across and communicate with the group that no I think that's great I appreciate you having me sure how could people get in touch if they wanted to work with Connor group in some way is there a website to go to or um some way to get in touch through the book or something that would be most helpful yeah it's I mean it's the Conor group.com easy to get to our kids in Community Partners it's called the Conor group kids and Community Partners but I think I think in the books uh Zack rainwater who's a partner in the

22:12 organization by the way great example Zach started with us in 2015 in the recruiting department did an exceptional job now he's partnering one of the key people in the investor department is here I think his contact information is uh in a card inside of the culture book great if anyone has trouble finding that you can just let uh Jennifer up front our membership director or someone on our team know and we'll help make sure and get that email to you but um I think you can see just like the other two Fireside Chats Larry is uh very generous with his time his advice he's not people that are like so extremely competitive they're not willing to share like how they did it or what they're doing and are generally uh just very generous uh exciting people to be around so I appreciate you spending your time here let's give Larry a big round of applause thank you join the family office club by visiting family offices.com we look forward to seeing you at our next live event