Growing up and attending public schools in a blue-collar area of Escondido, California, Senior Vice President and Partner Greg Marx, SIOR of the San Diego office had trouble envisioning, as the saying goes, “how the other half lives.” That all changed when he enrolled at the University of San Diego (USD) at the urging of his construction worker-turned-land broker father, who told him he had to “get involved in business.”
He joined a fraternity and soon made friends with young men whose upbringing bore no resemblance to his own. “It was the total opposite of how I grew up,” says Marx, a self-described “country boy.” He spent his formative years hunting, fishing, and camping with his dad, which led to him becoming an Eagle Scout. “They lived in these huge houses, and their families were billionaires. It was the most eye-opening experience to rub shoulders with and be friends with these guys.” Some of those friends included heirs of powerful U.S. political families, large European jewelers, grandsons of one of the largest brewing companies in the U.S., and the son of the CEO of one of the largest consulting firms in the U.S. There were also a couple of friends whose fathers were successful commercial real estate brokers. Those friendships would later prove invaluable to helping him choose his career path.
Planting the Seed
Marx had been peripherally exposed to real estate by his dad. His father, who once owned a roofing and construction company, went back to college and got his real estate license after discovering the percentage that residential real estate agents were making on deals. He did a handful of one-off deals with small developers before going to work in a land acquisition capacity for Carlsbad-based Barratt Homes, which focused on building affordable, smaller-scale homes in Southern California. His father regretted not getting into the business when he was younger. “He encouraged me to get into real estate, but said, ‘Don’t do what I did’ [land development], because it was so niche and became so much more difficult to navigate, given the ever-decreasing amount of raw land in San Diego,” says Marx.
At USD, he majored in accounting, primarily because it offered job security. But after a few years, he realized that it wasn’t his calling — “it was numbers, numbers, numbers.” As it was too late to change majors, and because he did not want to extend his college career due to the additional student loan burden, he added Real Estate as a minor by taking a few extra courses. The inspiration came not only from his father’s experiences but also from a fraternity brother whose father was a commercial real estate broker. “When I was in college, I saw all these different avenues of how to make money in the world. Not just money that allows you to buy a house in Escondido, but the opportunity to earn real wealth. And that’s what I wanted. So, I gravitated towards real estate, because it was something familiar that I could really wrap my head around.”
Introduction to CRE
His closest college friend’s dad worked at Colliers, so he helped him secure an internship there for $10 an hour during his senior year. While at Colliers, Marx mostly did research, maintained databases, and did some cold calling and lead generation for a couple of senior brokers. He also earned his real estate license along the way. Upon graduation, he was offered a commission-only job with the firm (as opposed to a runnership salary). “But I didn’t have any money. I was living back in Escondido with my parents, and I didn’t want to do that. So, I started doing my brokerage due diligence.”
Marx began cold-calling firms to find himself a runnership. He made some connections with the major corporate and regional brokerages, but was only offered positions that offered draws against future commissions. One contact at Cushman & Wakefield told him there were no positions available at C&W. He suggested that Marx contact Eric Northbrook, who had just left C&W to become the Managing Director (now Executive Managing Director) of Voit Real Estate Services’ San Diego office. After four calls to Northbrook (a test Northbrook uses to gauge candidates’ persistence), Marx scored an interview with him and the Voit founder, Bob Voit. He did well. But before being offered a runnership, Northbrook had him complete the McQuaig Word Survey, which helps firms assess a candidate’s personality and mental agility. His results were impressive, and Marx started with Voit as a salaried runner the following week.
Northbrook immediately placed him into a “wheel program,” which rotates fledgling brokers through the various business segments (office, industrial, retail, etc.), including shadowing the property management team. While he appreciated the exposure to property management, Marx was anxious to jump into brokerage. “I felt like I was going to get stuck in office purgatory,” he jokes. After pestering Northbrook, he was given a cube, a phone, and started cold calling on his own, focusing on small office buildings in downtown La Jolla. He scored a couple of lease and sale deals—a retail building and a dental office that a family friend had referred to him. However, his career didn’t take off until Northbrook urged then Senior Vice President (now Executive Vice President) Randy LaChance to take him under his wing.
Mentorship
LaChance, whose partner Glen Volk had recently gone into semi-retirement, needed help with some of the smaller leasing assignments in the business parks he represented. So, LaChance assigned Marx to a park with a half-dozen vacancies ranging from 1,200 to 2,400 SF. “At that point in his career, Randy was selling these business parks, having less time and bandwidth for these incubator spaces, so he brought me on,” says Marx. “He said it was a trial run. ‘You’re not on the listing, but here’s your name on the brochure,’ he told me. When I saw my name on that little brochure, I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I leased up all six of them, and he was 100% leased four months later.”
That success led to a second assignment at another business park, which he leased. “And, it really just turned into a partnership from there. But it wasn’t like it was ‘Greg is my junior partner’ from Day One. It was a lot of work to get there.” Marx now handles the leasing for approximately 10 business parks, with on average 150,000 SF assets and bays ranging from 1,600 to 40,000 SF, and has his own junior runner. “Now I have biweekly update calls with major landlords. I do the quarterly industrial reports for San Diego, and I’ve kind of emerged as the face of the industrial Central County team. I’ve been super lucky and blessed to step into these shoes.” He has also emerged as one of Southern California’s top performers when it comes to owner-user sales (closing 12 owner-user deals in 2022 alone) despite the slowdown of those transactions due to higher interest rates in recent years.
Successful Career
Marx closed 2024 with a trademark owner-user sale. He represented Classic Hardwood Floors in the $2.8 million sale of a 6,000 SF industrial building at 8939 Complex Drive to the San Diego Christian Fellowship. In 2025, he is posting another strong leasing year. He recently represented tenants Air Filter Supply (7310 and 7364 Convoy Court) and the Madden Corporation (7077 Consolidated Way) in a pair of 18,000+ SF transactions. He, along with Randy LaChance, also represented the landlord on the 9,600 SF lease to courier service Yanwen Express at 4661 Ruffner Street and a 7,700 SF lease to satellite phone company Sat Moto at 8295 Aero Place.
Now an 11-year CRE veteran, Marx credits his early success to Northbrook, who advocated for him and instilled the “7 am to 7 pm” work ethic in him as a young broker. He also credits LaChance for driving home the importance of being detail-oriented. “He was really hard on me a lot of times, often giving me an earful if I did something wrong. But I appreciated that all along, and never took it personally,” he says. “If he had a junior guy working on his team, he just always wanted to know that that guy knew his stuff.”
The hard work and mentoring have paid off in spades. Last September, Marx was named a Senior Vice President at Voit.
Not bad for a blue-collar kid from Escondido.
Additional broker profiles are scheduled over the next few months. Check back to see who we highlight next.