Sean J. Conlon

Sean J. Conlon is an Irish-American businessman, real estate entrepreneur, investor, television personality and philanthropist. He grew up in Rathangan, County Kildare, Ireland before moving to Chicago.

He is currently chairman and founder of Conlon & Co, CONLON/Christie's International Real Estate, CONLON Commercial and Conlon Capital. He is a co-host of The Deed, an unscripted television series focused on real estate investing on CNBC.

Conlon was born in Birmingham, England to Irish parents and raised in Rathangan, County Kildare, Ireland. Before migrating to America in 1990, Conlon attended the College of Marketing and Design, Dublin and worked as a credit analyst for Lehman Brothers in London.

Business career

In 1993, Conlon joined Koenig & Strey. He set yearly sales records nationally among real estate agents that exceeded $150 million.

In January 2000, Conlon formed Sussex & Reilly ("Sussex"), an Illinois-based real estate brokerage firm. Sussex grew to over 300 employees and annual brokerage sales volume in excess of $1 billion. He sold his interest in Sussex in 2006.

Since 2002, Conlon has been a partner of Van & Conlon. In 2004, in partnership, he acquired Near North National Title, which was established in 1988, and handles up to $5 billion in real estate transactions annually across the US. He sold Near North in February 2010. In 2005, Sean launched Connaught Real Estate Finance, a $100 million mezzanine fund that lends money to developers.

In 2009, he returned to residential real estate brokerage. In June 2013, Conlon became affiliated with one of the world’s real estate networks, Christie’s International Real Estate. Conlon is the Christie’s exclusive affiliate in Chicago.

In 2017, he launched Conlon Capital, which focuses on commercial real estate lending.

Television Personality

In November 2016, CNBC announced that Sean would be the co-host of its newest show The Deed which premiered in March 2017. "The eight-episode one-hour series will follow Torres in New Orleans and Conlon in Chicago as they throw distressed developers a lifeline by offering them their own cash and expertise in exchange for a piece of the property and a percentage of the profits."

The first of four episodes of The Deed: Chicago premiered on 29 March 2017 with subsequent episodes on the three following Wednesdays. the show consistently ranked in Showbuzzdaily's Top 150 Original Cable Telecasts and rated as high as the top 15 for its time slot.

In August 2017, CNBC announced that The Deed: Chicago was being renewed for a second season to air in 2018.