Connor Group goes on a spree

Locally based real estate investment firm makes acquisitions.

ADayton-area real estate investment firm recently closed $183 million in acquisitions in eight days, expanding inthreemarkets.

The Connor Group reentered the Indianapolis market Dec. 17 with the $40.5 million acquisition of The Domain at Bennett Farms, a 219-unit residential property in the Zionsville area. That property, the first The Connor Group has purchased in Indianapolis in more than a decade, “checked all of the boxes” for the firm’s acquisitions team.

In Tampa, Florida, the Connor Group closed a $93.25 million deal Dec. 15, acquiring Bayside Arbors. The 436-unit residential property is the second acquisition in the Tampa area, following the September 2019 purchase of Anchor Riverwalk.

The firm closed on Reserve at Cary Park in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Dec. 10. The $49.44 million property is the first acquisition in the Raleigh-Durham market for the company in the past four years.

The trio of acquisitions put the MiamiTwp.-basedfirmonpace to exceed $1.3 billion in transactions in 12months, includingpurchases, sales and refinances. Managing partner and CEO Larry Connor said each was a “phenomenal” property in a key market where the firm has been “extremely selective.”

Each became a reality because “people really do make the difference,” Connor said.

“Thiswould have been impossible without a talented group of individuals, not only to find the properties but (also) to negotiate and them close them,” Connor told the Dayton Daily News. “That’s not one person. That’s a group of people.”

Connor founded The Connor Group in 1992. It employs 400 associates nationwide, approximately 100 of them at Miami Twp.’s Austin Landing, its headquarters since 2014.

With those three closings, the firm acquired more than $565 million in 2020 and expanded to its 15th market. It owns luxury apartment communities in Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Louisville, Indianapolis, Austin, Nashville, Tampa, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Chicago, Charlotte, RaleighDurham, Dallas and Denver.

“We believe we can have a record-setting year in 2021 and do an estimated $1.5 billion in transactions between what we buy, sell and refinance,” Connor said. “It will not be easy, but it’s not impossible. We just think that we have the right, talented, committed group of people to execute even in these continuing-to-be challenging times.”

This isn’t the first time TheConnor Group pulled off this many deals in this short a span, according to Amanda Brown, the firm’s spokeswoman. In October 2018, it set a single-day transactional record, closing $618 million in transactions in one day, she said. The closing returned $40 million to investors and partners and saved more than $5 million in interest expenses, she said.

This is the third time in company history The Connor Group exceeded $1 billion in transactions over a 12-month span, Brownsaid.