Who wants to be a millionaire? - Property tycoon Sean Conlon has been dubbed the 'voice of US real estate' by transatlantic journalists and commentators.
Property tycoon Sean Conlon has been dubbed the 'voice of US real estate' by transatlantic journalists and commentators. CON POWER assesses his achievements
Featured in Crain's "40 under 40" and regularly interviewed by CNN, CNBC, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the thrusting Irish-born property tycoon epitomises the American dream in action.
At only 37, Mr Conlon already owns and runs one of the fastest growing real estate groups in the USA. His dynamic work ethic (regular 100 hour weeks by most accounts) have made him the stuff from which business legends are created.
Amongst others, his group of companies includes a mezzanine fund management business (Connaught Real Estate Finance), a title insurance company (Near North Title) that processes in excess of €4bn worth of transactions per year (Near North National Title) and a brokerage firm employing over 300 brokers in Chicago (Century 21 - Sussex & Reilly).
His extraordinary success story was profiled last year in in the RTE documentary "Made in America". The series highlighted successful emigrants from Ireland and their triumphant business successes.
Mr Conlon's decision to tap into the Irish market at this juncture is very significant. He has consistently made his fortune buying against the prevailing property cycle. Two years ago Sean Conlon was very much a seller, whereas he now a very much a bull on selected real estate classes within the US market.
Concern
Increasing demand for all real estate product types is a trend that Conlon & Co predicts is set to continue despite increasing international concern over the state of the US economy.
Buttresssing this view, Mr Conlon points out that employment and population trends are two key indicators of economic performance: "At present US unemployment is half that of the EU, down at 4%. Population is growing and is predicated to increase by an average of 13% per decade. US population is set to top 420m by 2050," he comments.
"Linking that to the retirement of the baby boomers with all of their surplus capital, and the funnel that will see investment demand flow from north to the southern parts of the USA and you begin to get a feel for where some of the opportunities."
Sean Conlon nowadays divides his time between homes in Chicago, London and Ireland. In 2001 he bought Mill House, County Wexford.
Following the interest generated by the 2006 RTE documentary and becoming increasingly aware of the presence of new Irish money chasing deals all across the USA, Mr Conlon decided the time was right to leverage his brand equity/track record and began a process to identify a partner company with the same ethos, aspirations and vision for inward investment into the USA.
Appreciation
The Irish-born property expert ultimately decided that Dublin based real estate firm Investor First - led by managing director James Carroll - "stood out from the pack in terms of their reputation, track record and appreciation for the partnership model envisioned". This decision was underpinned by Investor First's access to the sources of Irish capital, real estate demand and their ability to analyse/structure large scale investment/development projects.
Investor First managing director James Carroll has long held the view that the USA as a real estate investment destination for Irish investors has in latter years stood in the shadow of the vast investment exodus into the UK, Germany and the emerging market economies.
As Germany has belatedly become a favoured destination for Irish inward investment, so, he believed, would the USA ultimately become more recognised as an option that sophisticated investors would increasingly consider.
Undaunted by US economic worries, he says that the recent strong showing of the euro and perceived softening of the Irish market are factors which are further accelerating this trend. Success stories of well know developers such as Garret Kelleher of Shelbourne Developments, Paddy Kelly and established firms such as Quinlan Private and indeed Anglo Irish Bank only serves to add to this market investment momentum.
"When combined with yield compression and the narrowing of the value differential in Eastern and Central Europe, the predicted result is that increasing numbers of sophisticated investors will realise that the world biggest and most prosperous economy has to be part of their investment portfolio," Mr Carroll contends.
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