YouSaid · the spoken record

Larry Connor

lines on the record: 47
first: 2024-10-27
most recent: 2024-10-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So, yeah, you can go to our website at Connor Group and you can see what we're doing. By the way, vote's on the for-profit than not-for-profit. We didn't have an opportunity to talk about that, but we're huge believers in share the well. We try to do that. We have 23 in our kids and community partners initiatives, some of them national in scope, some of them regional, some of them local. We really believe that it's an obligation as well as an opportunity for companies that have been successful to play it back. Our focus is under resourced kids, whether it's local, regionally, or nationally. So you can read about that by going to the Conner Group or Kids in community partners.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or a hundred million dollar property because we always think long term. And so while what's happening right now is relevant. We're going to think out into the future and go, what's going to be the cap rate? What's going to be the marketplace? What's going to be the valuation long term? And that's going to be more like two or three years from now. And so as a result, we can forecast that maybe not perfectly, but within a certain range. And because we think long term, if our thesis doesn't play out, it plays out earlier, all the better. If it plays out longer, we're long term and we got permanent capital. So we don't have to sell, as I said, like 2023, terrible year of sell. First half of 24, bad. We haven't sold anything in a year and a half. And that's the liberty that long term thinking provides.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, yeah, two thoughts. Number one is, I think it was Warren Buffalo, too, and maybe Charlie Munger were talking about this idea of quarter by quarter earnings is a completely flawed idea that companies shouldn't do that. They ought to report more like on an annual basis because you end up being enslaved to the street and what perceptions are quarter by quarter. I just don't think it's a good benchmark. So here's a very interesting another key to our success. So in the depths of the recession, COVID, why do we have the conviction to go buy a”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if it was a bad decision, then it's on us. My opinion, there aren't a lot of companies that will do that. And it's just a huge difference maker, which plays to our long-term advantage. Because word travels, I mean, that's an interesting story. That broker told everybody, their brother about that. I heard from people all around the country.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Calls me the next morning and said, Hey look, stop everything. We got an offer from this other group that was kind of stalking us. That's like a million and a half dollars higher. And they're basing Atlanta and they know the property and they're ready to go. I said, absolutely not. I said, these guys are on an airplane right now. We gave them our word that what we were going to do and they're going to land here and they come out and do what they say they're going to do it's theirs. He's like, wait a minute. I don't think you understand. You're going to leave a million and a half on the table. And I said to him, no, I don't think you understand. I know that may be a little unconventional, but that's how we do things. And so that I can give you other examples. With us, if we tell you we're going to do something, even though it's maybe not in writing, we're doing it.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And travel was restricted. I don't know. It was like six months after COVID started or four months and something like that and traveling on airlines was challenging. We have this property and we were down to a couple of different groups. And so there was a group in California that really was interested in buying. But they hadn't been to the property yet. They'd done everything else. I'm like, well, we're not going to sell you. And they're like, okay, this wasn't a big organization. They go, we're willing to charter an airplane. That's very expensive. Fly across the country and we'll get our whole management team. We're like six people. And I said, well, this is the price. And they go, okay, we'll pay then. Give my way, nothing in writing. And so they said, okay, well, we're going to get this organized. We're going to come there tomorrow afternoon. This is like in the morning.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a complete non negotiable. If you said outside of people, outside of, you know, what is the most important thing historically or for your long-term success? It's reputation. We are awarded deals. We're not the highest bidder. We may be third or fourth, but they know we're going to do everything. I'll give you one great, real short story. This is during COVID. So we had a property for sale in Atlanta.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is a team sport building businesses. And I know people talk about team. In my experience, most of the time, it's more words than it is actions and deeds. And all you got to do with any company go, okay, well, you believe in team, you believe in share of the wealth. You believe, show me exactly every single factual, measurable thing you're doing. And then I can determine myself whether you're really doing it or not. My experience, 90% of them don't and the 10 that do turn out to generally be elite.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are not confined by conventional thinking. Maybe that's why an English major or a concentration in Shakespeare and literature ends up in the investing world. So you have to be willing to step back, think about unconventional things, ask yourself why that worked or why it won't, what really matters, right? Don't look at your peer group. In most industries, as you and your listeners know, it's herd mentality. Break out of the herd. Don't run wild. Don't run off, you know, but pick a different path, you know, sail an unchartered waters. You know, maybe if you lose sight of land, maybe you'll find a new place to go to. So it's with you. I'm just to me or to us, it's kind of utterly amazing. This is never an”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of the people who recertify every year. And so we literally have people who have been partners five, ten years. They make more money from their partnership ownership than they do from their base and bonus. And it's been wildly successful. And I'm just surprised that more business owners don't take a bigger picture view to long-term sustainability. People retention, people productivity. all which happens with this partner program.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got 80, it's the right thing to do, and people count. So, what's share of the wealth? So we start a unique partner program. Anybody in the organization can be a true equity partner. No dilution to shareholders. It all comes from me. And today we have 76. We actually have to give you some example. We have things called groundskeepers. Those are people who basically pick up trash and things like that at our properties. Two of those people are partners. We have people in accounting, recruiting, service, sales, administrative assistance. But once you become a partner, what's unique is you're not a partner for life. You have to recertify every single year. So you got to show up and we expect you to do three things. The exceptional at your job, be a role model and help other people. And as long as you do that, you recertify 95%.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One is always do the right thing. I think virtually anybody knows that. I don't care what part of an organization. Two, people count. And by the way, it's very vogue and has been in recent years, but we believe that for a long time. And it's by actions and deeds, not by words. Three, relentless pursuit of excellence in everything you do. Four, think long term, not short-term. That's why we'd be a lousy public company. And five, this management thing we call circle of success. And so going back to that, I'm like, I think we're headed on a good path. We're being pretty successful. So think about it as a pie. And you're a business owner. Do you want a pie that's big that you own 100% of or would you like a pie that's like that big that you owned 80% of? Well, it looks like to me that pie is better, even though you”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“900,000 dollars that I owed in personal loans. So we might have to make that clarification. Anyway, we paid them all in three or four years. Yeah. So we believe that really exceptional people work for more than just a paycheck. They work for some kind of purpose. And by the way, it can be different for different people. One of those purposes is that they're part of something bigger, better, special, and that they got to share the wealth and act like can be treated like an owner. So about 20 years ago, you know, we had formed core values. And there's five.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You got to have people. We talk about the three or four Ps you got to have to be successful. We think number one is you got to have the right people. Number two is you got to have a plan. Number three is you got to have good processes. Number four, you're going to have perseverance. Notice I didn't see capital on any of those. If you have those four in almost any endeavor, your chances for success are pretty darn good.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I got a wife, two kids in a farm. I have no job. In fact, I got worse and broke because I had gone out and borrowed. This is 1990. I had borrowed $900 from small banks, like personal loans, things like that. Well, today that's what, three or four million dollars. And I'm like, so I'm broken. I owe all that money. And somehow, some way I'm paying every single bank back, every single dime with interest, which I was able to do in the next whatever it was, three, four year period of time. So it's a little tough when you're in that situation and you're 40 years old. So the moral of the story is don't give up. The moral of the story is it's never too late to start. The moral of the story is learn from your failures, but just so much in business is about grit determination and perseverance. It's not about necessarily who's the most brilliant. Now, I think”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'll give you one that I talked about in Forbes that certainly people have asked me about. So we have owned eight different operating businesses. Seven of them have been super successful. One was a colossal failure. And that was in the computer industry in the 80s. So I'll give you the Cliff Nodes version. We own that business for nine years. We were in hardware and software and system integration. We grew the business. We didn't really, we're way undercapitalized. We didn't kind of know what we were doing. The industry, the margins got crushed. We had two convoluted of a strategy. We didn't understand the concept of simplicity as brilliance. And so we closed the doors. And I'm like, well, that's a problem. Because at the time I'm age 40, all the money I'd made from other things I had put into the company, I'm broke.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What you've got to do is eliminate or greatly minimize avoidable mistakes. And we're really good. We never make excuses. We own everything. And I think that's, again, that's people, that's mindset, that's culture. It just gives us the liberty, the freedom to not be willing. This is a problem, by the way. You've probably seen it, Kyle, in your endeavors. A lot of people, many of them institutional, although the private sector can have the same, it's like it's not about maximizing return. It's about not failing. Well, just think about that. That's a negative approach. You're never going to be exceptional. You're never going to excel if you're always trying not to fail. You got to embrace the failure, but not stay in that place very long.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, if you were to say to me, besides people, besides culture, why are you successful, I would say because we had the willingness to fail and the ability to own it and the ability to be able to assess it, and the ability to be able to self-correct it. And so yes, we try to get everybody to think about failure as a learning experience. So when we fail, We try to think about, okay, first thing. Oh man, I feel bad about, oh God, we really screwed this up. And what do you do? Like, all right, we're all number one. What do we learn? Rule number two, what are we going to change? Rule number three, how do we make sure that we don't go back to rule number one and repeat that same? We think about two kinds of things. Honest mistakes and avoidable. Everybody makes honest mistakes.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Over 32 years, we've averaged 30%, last five, 38, your expectation should be in the low to mid-20s over the next 10 years. And I think that's contrary to what some people think. I think the real estate specifically has part and space is still going to be a great real estate space to be in, but I don't think the returns will be as high. But they'll be better than almost any other option.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we're getting ready to have an investor day in six weeks. So I'm not sure this, my delivery will be what people want to hear. But here's what I honestly think. I think we exited a decade of unprecedented returns, fueled in great part by economic growth, monetary policy, both in terms of liquidity, debt, everything else like that. So for example, we last five years, I think it's 38%. I'm going to tell our investors do not expect that going forward. I think the next 10 years will be much tougher to extract not impossible, but much tougher to extract exceptionally high returns. And so what I'm going to say to our investors is the following. Hey, look.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, by the way. For most of your investors out there who are doing this passive man, you've got to be careful. Like, you did not, we went out publicly in 2019 and said the market had moved from premium pricing to the absurd. We were really public about that. We were still able to buy some things because we can kind of find these hidden gems. Then COVID hit the market shut down. We went aggressively in and bought a bunch of stuff. As soon as the market, the market corrected itself, people don't realize like six months into COVID, we became massive net sellers. We sold like 60% of our portfolio in two and a half years.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a passive investment. You put your money in. Maybe there's a third party management company. We think about it completely different. We think about a living, breathing operating business. We operate it like an operating business, not a passive investment. So all we have to do is go find that 1% that are great assets in great locations that are all screwed up. And we go buy them. So whether the markets good or bad or static, at the end of the day, Kyle, if we improve the bottom line on our property 60 or 80 percent, the only thing you and I are going to argue about is how much more it's worth. And we may not agree upon that, but we're both going to agree it's worth more as long as you bought a good asset and a good location. So that's why we can make money in any cycle. You are absolutely”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, fair question, but we think about it completely differently. So just you have to think about the apartment industry, okay. About, I don't know the latest stats, but roughly 70% of all the apartment communities in America are not institutionally owned. So it's a very fragmented market. And if you think about it, Let's say for example, let's just pick a market. Dallas, Texas, we've been in Dallas 20 years, great market. There are literally, I forget the latest numbers. I think it's like 1.1 million apartment units. Well, how many of those are mismanaged? I mean, stop and think about. Keep in mind, most people think about real estate investing.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get rid of it, sell them. We bought it for $70,500,000. Today it's probably worth about $110,000 to $150. But again, those are, I mean, it's not easy to do. I'm not trying to say, oh, yeah, wake up and you just do this. But seize the opportunity, seize the moment when everybody runs through the sidelines. We turn and go the different the opposite direction and we move in a disciplined in control but decisive manner and that's worked well for us over the years”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The short answer is yes. Like we bought last year nine assets. We recently had a reason to review those nine. So I penned a short note out to some of our investors like, we're going to kill it with these. And we by the end, you should never say anything that you can't back up. And we have a long history of backing it up. And yeah, I mean, When you're buying a property, I could give you some different examples. I'll give you one I won't go into all the details, but essentially this asset was in a high-profile market, should have traded for probably 86, 87 million. The sellers who were very institutional, so they just decided to sell. There was no financial pressure, but they just decided we're remixing the portfolio.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Show appreciation for our residential appreciation for our associates. And so we love turmoil. We love disruption. The more convoluted, stress the market is, the better for us because we have very permanent capital. We have very patient capital. We have total control of our capital. The largest monetary investors are us in-house. So we're not under any pressure or dictate to make short-term decisions.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We don't withstand anything. We are bill for turmoil. So like the Great Recession, we did unbelievably well. Real forward to COVID, okay? COVID, by the way, very serious, very real. We just decided not to participate. So it's mindset. Why? Wait a minute. We're in a fundamental business. We didn't wait for the government to tell us we were. We all met on a Monday when COVID had been officially announced and said, wait a minute, we're a fundamental business. We have an obligation to take care of our residents. This is eight o'clock on a Monday morning. Everybody's got till 5 o'clock. We have 12 different departments here at the headquarters, how we're going to support the people in the field. And we did that. We never closed for a day. We never closed our offices here. We took great care of our associates. We did a lot of really unique things, some of which have been publicized to really.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I would probably bifurcate it into a couple of different groups. So group A is going to be institutional owners. You know, we're in a lot of what you would call high profile lifestyle markets, Denver, Colorado, Austin, Texas, Tampa, Florida, Charlotte, Fort Lauderdale. You get the idea. So you got a lot of institutional buyers there. By the way, we also operate in the Midwest where we've done super well. That tends to be more private capital. But it's generally one of those two groups. But again, it can be, it just depends upon the asset and who's in the market. Groups move in and out of the market. Like there hadn't been a lot of institutional money in the market. It's been a lot of private capital. That's rapidly changing right now.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Take you to do that. Number three is leverage. By the way, you can make a fourth point, the quality of the asset. And so we're really good at combining all those together and compressing the period of time and using prudent leverage, not over leveraging, but using smart leverage and always buying high quality assets.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the discipline and the systems to be able to make those adjustments. So is there a typical property that we buy? So, yeah, we're kind of a collective buyer's, but if you said, well, give me a profile. Generally, they're going to be suburban. Generally, they're going to be in what they call Class A locations. Generally, they're going to be 10 to 15 years old. And they're going to fit the other profile of barriers to entry dramatically improve the bottom line. And so we think the thing to really kind of to think about that will dictate the outcome of your investment return are three fundamental things. And by the way, this is true in Byan, we believe any kind of operating business. Number one is how much can you improve the bottom line? Number two is how long is it?”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So fair question, which you have to constantly adjust. So if you look, we've done well in up markets, we've done well in down markets, we've done well in markets that are traded sideways because we keep adjusting the return expectations. So we never look at, let's say, the multiple is or the cap rate based upon today or history. We are always forecasting the future. And so for example, like last year 2023, US nobody's buying apartments. Like we didn't sell a thing. That's the first time in 14 years we hadn't sold anything. We, on the other hand, bought a billion dollars. By unbelievable buys. So we're counter-cyclical. When everybody's buying, we're selling. When people are selling, okay, I mean, so you have to have the”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“By the way, it's much harder to do, but it's not impossible. And so that's what we've done a visit. We carry that over. Like we will do no project. The last one, which actually we just celebrated the one-year anniversary like two days ago, we built the largest hot air balloon ever built in the United States, flew it to 38,000 feet, myself in four Air Force Para Rescue guys, stepped off the thing, did a five-man formation, set a world record. Nobody's ever done a halo jump that high, and got everybody on the ground. Well, the reason why is we won't do a project like that unless it meets two standards. And they both start with us. Number one is safe. Number two is successful. So in every single thing we've done, we've been able to manage down risk in a significant manner. And so I think.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very good question. You've done your homework. So let's talk about the business side first, and then I'll go over to the personal side. So here's an interesting stat that basically we had this belief from day one. We believed we could really limit downside risk and really ratchet up upside opportunity. And so let's look at the numbers. In the last 32 years, we've done 231 acquisitions of apartment communities around the country. We've lost money on eight. So it's like, what? Like 96, 97%. Yeah, how would you like to do that in the stock market? I sure can. So we think people don't understand risk. Why take risk when you don't have to? Can't you stack the odds in your favor?”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the people who stay generally will pay a higher rate because they perceive value than the people who are coming in. You aggregate all that together. It's very hard to do. That's why there's virtually nobody in the industry. We haven't found anybody in the industry who does it like we do. But it's also the reason why you end up extracting. If you look at our returns, which your viewers are probably interested in, over the last 32 years, our average annual return to our investors after fees is 30.4%, 30.4 IRR. And over the last five years, it's like 38%.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And have a better customer experience, not worse. Then we're going to look at the typical can we raise rates? Is there anything on the physical facility we need to improve? We'll invest huge dollars if we need to, many times, by the way, it's an operational play. You don't have to do the capital. And then we will, people will pay for value. So maybe we can raise that rent $100 or $200, but they're not going to take it if you don't give them perceived value. And one of the really unique things is we have an exceptionally high what's called resident retention rate. So the industry turns over about 60% of their units on an annual year. We only turn over about 45%. It doesn't sound like a lot, but if you got a 300-unit property, that's 45 less units to turn over.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have a four or five prong attack. So we're going to look at interesting, first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at customer service or resident. Many times these are large, super nice located. The assets are nice, but they're really poorly run. In fact, the war suits run, the better we like it. And so we get there, we do a very unusual on-site due diligence. When we see if it's a train wreck, that's perfect as long as it's got everything else we're looking for. And so we're going to go in and address that. We're going to bring our own team of people, management, sales, and service. We're going to really focus on customer issues. We're going to fix those. Then we're going to think about where we can, decreasing cost, increasing people productivity. And by the way, you can increase productivity and reduce costs.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“$85 million property. We look for a great property in a great location with barriers to entry, meaning demand watt strip supply long term, that we can massively increase bottom line within 24 months. If we can't improve the bottom line at least 60, 60 percent in 24 months, we won't buy it. And by the way, that's obviously easier said than done, but maybe that's why we buy out of 700, we'd buy 1%.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All these proprietary systems and questions we ask and profiles we do. And even though we started with 700, went to 325, 175, we'll buy maybe eight or nine properties. So basically 1%. So at the end of the day, like so many other things in life, it's about hardware, determination, discipline, and perseverance. So there's not like, and I think you probably, they're not like silver bullets, you know, people think that. Okay, anybody maybe gets lucky. They bought Amazon early on or Facebook or whoever it may be. And yeah, we look for different things. And so we look for what we call businesses. These are going to be large luxury apartment communities. The average acquisition we do is an”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, good question. Let me give you maybe kind of an interesting answer that I'll speak to. And by the way, this is true. As you know, Kyle in any Kyle investing. So let's take a typical year. We're in 18 markets. We'll get information on roughly 700 to 800 properties that throughout the course of the year come for sale. Our team, which is small, it's about a half a dozen, but really a lee will do initial analytics. We'll underwrite about, let's say it's 700, about half of them, about 300 to 350. We will physically around the country go visit 175 to 200. So a tremendous amount of legwork. And we're going to do both quantitative analysis as well as qualitative. And we've built”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we don't get hung up on where you went to school, what your GPA was. We're far more interested in the content of your character. And have you had success managing and motivating and leading people”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really good at multitasking, even though we're in a low tech business, we're in a complex operating system. Three, you got to have accountability, self-accountability, and you got to be able to hold each other other people accountable, but do it in an honest, direct, constructive manner. Four, you got to be culturally aligned with our philosophies and beliefs. Five, you got to have grit. We define that as passion and perseverance. Six, you got to have a work ethic. You know, if you want to come in at eight and leave at four, hey, that's great, but this isn't the place to work. And so wherever we can find them, we have two or three super successful people who are from, by the way, the media world. A couple of them from print, one of them from TV. We have people from retail. We have people from service industries. We have people from logistics distribution.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's very eclectic. So we hire for personalities. So, for example, we can tell you what we call the big six. Anybody in a leadership role, and they're all important. I'll go through them quickly. One, you got to be.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Are the number one key to success? And given that, yeah, I think you can make the argument if you said, what's the number one thing that's separated you? And that is we hired all people who have never done it before and just built our own models and own systems and processes”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We call customer satisfaction because we never call them tenants, okay, that we could control costs, have higher productivity, find sources of revenue, and give the resident a great experience. And in the first year or two, we did hire a few people from the industry. The problem was our ideas were so radical, they thought we were crazy. And in fact, that kind of followed us the first six, seven, eight years like we'd go to buy properties or we'd work with brokers and they'd be like, oh yeah, you guys, everybody says you guys are crazy that, you know, and so we finally just after a couple years said, we're going to hire all people who share common beliefs, common philosophy, and ultimately kind of a common culture. We're just going to do it our way. And we believe people.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, a short history lesson when we started, my partner and I, we had a fundamental belief that apartments are just like any other operating business. And we had background knowledge, experience, some success in operating different kinds of businesses. And so we said, we think we can bring a different type of operating model to the industry, do better on”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Will never outperform your own self image. Think about that for a second. You'll never outperform your own self-image. So yeah, we just think we get a bunch of talented people. We think it's a team sport. We don't care what anybody else thinks. We don't care that we're different. We don't care if we fail. We'll fail. We'll fail fast. We'll learn. And the results have worked out pretty well.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So think about this, Kyle. If you truly want to be exceptional, if you want to be the best, you want to be a lead, don't you, by definition, have to be different. If you're like everybody else, you're going to end up at or close for everybody else is. So I think it's a willingness, a mindset, to be different. By the way, don't be different just to be different. Be smart different. be disruptive to be disruptive. Be smart disruptive. Don't set ceilings. Like someone says, well, that's impossible. In my experience, 97% of the time, that's just someone's opinion. And so a fellow told me one time, I think it's almost 20 years ago, and it really rings true.”
2024-10-27 · We Study Billionaires · TIP671: Unconventional Value: Contrarian Thinking and Outperformance w/ Larry Connor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT