Long & Foster heir continues 6-decade legacy with boutique firm 

Not every seven-year-old knows what they want to be when they grow up. But for Larry "Boomer" Foster, there were only three options: become an NFL player, practice law with his dad, or become president of Long & Foster, his uncle's family business.

The first option seemed unlikely to pan out, so he went with the second, attending law school in South Carolina. Although Boomer's father passed away before he received his J.D., he stuck with it and eventually found his footing as a partner at a law firm in Columbia. 

Still, option three remained on the table.

Bit by the real estate bug

Boomer hadn't given much thought to his Long & Foster dream until the early 2000s, when his uncle P. Wesley Foster, Jr. called to ask if Boomer had any interest in joining the real estate firm he founded in 1968. 

Although he'd found success as a lawyer, Boomer's heart wasn't in it. He was representing big insurance companies as a litigator and was paid well, but "it wasn't the type of job you went home from at the end of the day and you looked in the mirror and said, 'I did something good for somebody today,'" he told Real Estate News.

So he took a leap of faith and moved with his family to Northern Virginia to become a real estate agent at the firm. With his uncle's encouragement and his own hard work, Boomer became a Long & Foster office manager within a few years. Soon after, the Great Recession hit — but he and his agents hunkered down and managed to grow while others were shrinking, he said. 

He was promoted to regional manager in Northern Virginia and West Virginia in 2010, and as the region grew to about $7 billion in production, Boomer continued to be noticed for his performance. 

Around 2014, he was named president of general brokerage, fulfilling his childhood dream.

Boomer served in that role for more than a decade. "I fell in love with the real estate industry, and fell in love with the people I worked with," he said.

Pushed out of the family business

In 2017, Boomer and another part-owner sold their ownership stakes in the company; later that year, HomeServices of America acquired the Long & Foster brand. For several years, the acquisition didn't affect Boomer's role, but one day in 2023, he and the other former owner were "invited not to come back." Days later, his Uncle Wes passed away.

The new owners wanted to implement a fresh leadership team, and Boomer found himself saddled with a three-year non-compete agreement. 

"It wasn't voluntarily that I left," Boomer said, adding that he had nothing bad to say about those he left behind at Long & Foster. But what could have turned into a life slump became a "huge blessing," he said. 

His wife, Diana Foster, is also a seasoned agent, and during those three years, Boomer got back to basics by working as her assistant and used the time to prepare for the next stage in his career. 

During those three years, Boomer followed the rapid advancements in technology and AI, and he considered how he might apply it to his future business endeavors "to roll out something really special."

Something new, with a nod to the old

After he left Long & Foster, Boomer said he received offers from a number of large real estate companies, but he wanted to be at a brokerage that reflected the values he had learned from his uncle: character, integrity, hard work, honor and an unwavering focus on consumers.

"I really felt like I had a duty to protect my uncle's legacy of treating people well and being passionate and obsessive over the consumer experience," he said.

Rather than join an existing firm, he decided to launch Paul Wesley Real Estate, a roughly 30-agent brokerage now operating in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., that focuses on people over profits and whose name pays homage to the men who helped shape Boomer's values and career — his dad Paul and his uncle Wes.

The brokerage is becoming a new family firm of sorts, with Diana working as an agent for the company, and Boomer's sister, Rachel Foster, serving as senior vice president and principal broker.

Launching an independent firm during an era of sweeping consolidation was contrarian, Boomer acknowledged, but he believes many agents are looking for a brokerage where "they're not just a number."

His goal was to build a company where it "feels like you're part of a family, that shares the same values that you have and is not beholden to shareholder calls and trying to squeeze as much money — regardless of who you step over — out of a transaction as you possibly can."

Big dreams, with a focus on people

Advancements in AI have allowed Boomer to roll out "big-company tech, resources and support" while otherwise operating on a boutique level — a game-changer that has "leveled the playing field," for smaller firms, he said.

There have been challenges, of course, like making sure the brokerage's systems were all running smoothly before onboarding agents, and then bringing on new agents when the firm opened in April — the middle of the busy spring market.

But in addition to their 30 founding agents, Boomer said they have another 20 committed to joining, and he hopes to scale at a "disciplined" pace. He's in no rush, but Boomer expects the brokerage to move into West Virginia and Delaware in the near future.

"Do we have big dreams? Sure we do," he said. "But at the end of the day, what it comes down to for us is helping people."