A VISION of PERMANENCE
JON GRZYB | CEO July 2018 1
ALL GREAT COMPANIES find themselves at a crossroads. That defining moment when they realize that who they’ve become is not nearly as vital as who they must be.
This is our defining moment. What we’ve accomplished at Conrex is nothing less than extraordinary. In record time, we’ve become a leading player in the market for Single Family Rental homes. We’ve amassed more than 7,000 properties, provided more than 25,000 people with a place to call home, proven our method for making every home profitable, and delivered healthy profits to our investors whose capital has allowed us to get here. What started as a contrarian investment strategy in 2011, investing long in housing to create something of value out of the 2008 crisis, has proven itself to be something much more substantial — for us, our tenants, and our investors. And while many of our competitors view the rise of Single Family Rental homes as little more than an institutional asset class that can be bought and sold for a profit, we believe that it is so much more. And that’s why we’re here. We are more than an asset class. We are more than a job and a paycheck. We are a community. A community of builders and believers whose every decision can make a meaningful difference in someone else’s life. And it’s my job to provide you with the clarity you need about our Purpose and our Vision so that every decision you make and every action you take is carried out with confidence.
OUR PURPOSE
We positively impact the lives in the communities we serve. Our Purpose makes clear who we are and why we’re here, and it is our Vision that helps us prioritize. It’s a measurable destination that pushes us to change the way we show up and operate so that we may hit every milestone together.
OUR VISION BY JANUARY 2021 As we set out to transform Conrex, there are three numbers that matter most: 21,000, 75%, and 4.3.
21,000 THE NUMBER OF HOMES IN OUR PORTFOLIO Our current operations have allowed us to grow and manage our portfolio of 7,000 homes, but tripling the number of homes in our portfolio will require us to work in completely new ways. Working at 3X our current scale demands that we fundamentally rethink how we do what we do, from the way we’re organized, to the way we make decisions, to the systems and processes we use. Getting to scale will require us to draw on each other’s knowledge, domain expertise, and life experiences to cocreate an even better future.
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75% OUR TENANT RETENTION RATE It costs a lot less to keep an existing tenant than it does to find a new one, which means the best way to drive down our per-home costs is to keep our tenants happier longer. We trust our tenants to care for our properties, and our tenants trust us to care for them. It’s our job to anticipate their needs, welcome their ideas, and deliver a dignified experience from the very first moment they meet us until the inevitable moment they move on. By keeping our tenants happier longer, we’ll not only increase per-home profitability, we’ll also attract new resources to continue investing in our growth.
4.3 OUR GLASSDOOR RATING Achieving efficiency at scale and delivering meaningful customer experiences is only possible when we’re able to tap our shared humanity. Before we are colleagues, we are people. People with wide-ranging interests, hobbies, life experiences, and professional expertise that, when fully activated, will fuel our collective innovation and problem-solving. To do that, we need a culture that makes room for individual growth and creativity, while not sacrificing the teamwork, collaboration, and accountability that allows us to get things done.
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21,000. 75%. 4.3. Each of us will have numbers to hit individually, but these are the numbers we must hit together. While we’ve been successful as property investors and operators, we know we can make a more meaningful impact as community builders. But it won’t be easy. Because there are some fundamental shifts we need to make to succeed — philosophically, financially, and operationally. We need to carry forward what’s best in us — our maverick mindset, our proprietary analytics and technology, and our track record for consistently delivering investor returns — and leave behind the limiting beliefs and behaviors that stand in our way to becoming more than just a place to work. These goals are more than aspirational — they’re transformational. They’ll require us to develop a new set of capabilities and a whole new way of working. And it’s my belief that, done right, they’ll make Conrex a place where each of us can grow and thrive together, for generations to come.
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OUR CAPABILITIES RADICAL EMPATHY We cannot create great experiences for others if we do not fully inhabit their hopes, dreams, frustrations, and fears. Great experiences are not simply transactional—they’re emotional. Designing meaningful moments and interactions, whether for our tenants, our investors, or each other requires each of us to develop the capacity for deep listening, a willingness to suspend judgment, an openness to dialog, and a genuine desire to create meaningful moments that matter.
EXTREME OWNERSHIP AND ACCOUNTABILITY Every moment matters in our business — for every home and every tenant — and each of us has a responsibility to do our part in making each moment the best it can be. Our day-to-day success as an organization depends on our collective ability to react, respond, focus, and follow through our tenants’ needs as they arise. To do that, each us must learn to say what we’ll do, do what we say, and leave nothing undone.
CREATIVITY AND COLLABORATION Innovation is a team sport — it requires each of us to bring everything we’ve got every day, including our experiences, our expertise, and the lens through which we view the world. Breakthrough ideas don’t happen in a vacuum. They need creative fuel in the form of deep insights, meaningful debate, and friendly dialog. Our best ideas are yet to come, but we can
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only access them by embracing what makes us different and resisting the comfort of the status quo.
SYSTEMS THINKING Everything we do and every decision we make has an impact on someone or something other than ourselves — none of us operates in a silo. We are an eco-system of do-ers and decision-makers partnering to deliver exceptional experiences for tenants and predictable profits to investors. It’s our duty to do our work in a way that generates the greatest good for ourselves and our tenants, increases our operating efficiency, and yields returns for our investors — while minimizing any negative impact from unintended consequences.
ENERGY AND OPTIMISM The path to success is never a straight line, and effort alone will not be enough to get us where we need to go. We will face our fair share of challenges and setbacks along the way, which will certainly test our faith in the future and in each other. Overcoming our challenges won’t be easy, but we can make even our most difficult moments worthwhile by assuming the best in each other, adopting a growth mindset, embracing change as the new status quo, and living our Core Values.
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WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE AT CONREX Ours is the noblest of professions. We create and manage homes. The place where most people do their living, their laughing, and their loving. The place where they create their life’s most precious memories. It’s our job to help make those memories matter. We positively impact the lives in the communities we serve. This is what it means to be Conrex.
JON GRZYB, CEO
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