Marc D. Smouha, 22
Founder at CorePoint Real Estate
If you’re a normal go-getter — the kind of person who wakes up every morning with a spring in your step and a desire to conquer the day — there’s a good chance Marc Smouha will make you feel like a lazy bum.
Let’s start with his age and title: 22 years old and founder of his own company.
Take solace, you say to yourself. A company started by a 22-year-old can’t be that impressive.
Actually, that company, CorePoint Real Estate, is already a 10-person firm at five months old, and 22-year old Smouha already has $165 million in transaction volume under his own belt. (Now ask yourself: WTF?!)
As for the Monmouth, N.J.-born founder, he personally closed over $100 million in the last 12 months, having carved a niche for himself in off-market transactions in industrial real estate in Florida, Georgia and Texas while he was at KSR.
“I thought to myself: Where are all the signs pointing?” Smouha told Commercial Observer when asked how he found this specialized asset. “In retail, how often am I going to a store today versus 10 years ago? Everything is going online. The future really is in logistics.”
The biggest deal Smouha completed in the last year was for a 115,318-square-foot multi-tenant industrial warehouse in Medley, Fla., which he sold from the Gorey family to Longpoint Realty Partners for $27 million.
“That was really a story of persistence,” Smouha said. “I contacted the seller over a year or two ago. We went back and forth, and back and forth. They said, ‘Hey, Marc, we’re not interested [in selling] — we’d need a really crazy number.’ ” But when Smouha found a buyer looking for a multi-tenant industrial space, he called the Goreys and made the deal.
Smouha was still in high school when he began interning with KSR (he briefly attended Brooklyn College) and real estate was in the blood; one grandfather was a landlord, and another was a property manager of shopping centers.
As for starting a company from scratch? “It’s a lot of administrative things. You don’t realize how much there is to do on the back end. At the same time, it’s really enjoyable — I’m confident in the direction we’re going. We know what we’re building and building well. … We’re in it for the long run.”
Oh, yeah, did we mention that Smouha just became a dad? Just wait until this dude hits 23.
