Steve Horvath, Karina Caulfield,  Ruth Drussy Hernandez

CONLON: A Real Estate Company

CONLON: A Real Estate Company has always been able to recognize opportunities with its understanding of the market. Since its founding by partners Sean Conlon, Benjie Burford, Rich Kasper and Tim Sheahan, CONLON has established itself as one of Chicago’s premiere brokerages, and has tripled from its original size. Among the many reasons for its success are Steve Horvath, Karina Caulfield and Ruth Drussy Hernandez.

Hernandez, the company’s managing broker and a 28-year industry veteran, has been with CONLON since its inception in 2009. She says CONLON’s team-building and customer-centric business model has been at the center of its growth.

“We are customer-centric and consider our agents to be at the core of our business model,” she says. “Our culture invites inter-company cooperation and collaboration. We have a true team concept that has prevailed and maintains cohesion.”

Caulfield, CONLON’s new VP of business development, is a proven team builder. After a long track record for launching, building and leading high-end luxury real estate companies herself, she was drawn to the company because of its culture when it came to agent support.

“The key to a successful real estate office is not just hiring agents to have the largest roster, but rather, consistently working with your agents individually so that they can increase their personal sales volume year after year,” Caulfield says.

Nurturing agents as well as client relationships is important to CONLON’s goals. Horvath, the president of CONLON’s commercial division and a recipient of NAR’s Commercial Alliance National Award for outstanding achievement in the commercial real estate industry, is emphatic that client relationships are what makes the company special. “We base every transaction on a long-term relationship with our clients,” he says.