NNN Pro Adds Chris Marks to Lead New Capital Markets Business

NNN Pro, a net-lease investment sales and advisory firm that separated from Marcus & Millichap (MMI) in early 2023 to form a stand-alone brokerage, has launched a capital markets division to be run by longtime Marcus & Millichap broker Chris Marks, Commercial Observer has learned.

Marks, who spent 15 years at Marcus & Millichap, joined NNN Pro as a senior managing director to help scale the 25-year-old company’s new debt financing business. Over the course of Marks’s 20-year commercial real estate finance career, he has facilitated more than 2,000 transactions exceeding $4 billion with a large emphasis on single-tenant net-lease deals, according to NNN Pro.

“We’ve been searching since our inception for the right partner to wear our jersey with the capital markets team and do a lot of business with a lot of different groups,” Glen Kunofsky, founder and CEO of NNN Pro, told CO. “We didn’t want to have a capital market team unless they were the best, and when Chris expressed an interest that is how this all started.” 

The capital markets team Marks is running based in New York includes two of his former Marcus & Millichap colleagues, Cameron Thornton and Stefanie Buchanan. The group also consists of Joyce Crowder, who arrives after eight years at CapStar Tri-Net Funding, and Howard Curd, who joined NNN Pro in 2019 working in its institutional coverage group. 

Marks said a past working relationship with NNN Pro played a big role in his decision to join forces with Kunofsky. 

“I’ve been working with these guys for over 15 years and we’ve done a ton of business together, and it just made sense,” Marks said. “It was the right time for me to make the move and jump into something new and build it from the ground up and maybe get into some different ventures like direct lending.”

Marks said he is looking to grow the capital markets team this year and is now actively hiring for positions in New York, Boston and Scottsdale, Ariz. He said the team will focus on all major property sectors on a national level with net-lease being the major vertical for the platform in sectors such as self-storage, multifamily and office. 

NNN Pro is launching the capital markets platform at a time when lending activity has begun to pick up, with more clarity around interest rates and plenty of capital on the sidelines waiting to be deployed.  

“We’re seeing banks lending again aggressively.” Marks said. “Rates are somewhat stagnant so we’re kind of where we were last year, but there’s a lot more capital out there now, so we’re starting to see the market adjust.” 

Andrew Coen can be reached at acoen@commercialobserver.com