Steven Martin

Steve Martin is the founder and Managing Principal of SDM Partners, a private commercial real estate investment firm he launched in 2009 — at the depths of the Great Recession — that focuses on acquiring opportunistic office, industrial, business park, and related land assets in the Southeast, particularly metro Atlanta. He describes himself as a roughly three-decade veteran of commercial real estate (his firm materials cite 32+ years of market knowledge and relationships), with expertise spanning acquisitions, development, leasing, and finance.

Before founding SDM Partners, Martin was a Managing Director at Granite Properties, where he led property investment and leasing initiatives. Earlier, he was a Partner at Atlanta-based NAI Brannen Goddard, a full-service commercial real estate firm, where he served regional, national, and international clients. His earlier career included development roles at Aronov Realty Management (one of the Southeast's largest privately owned real estate companies) and at Trammell Crow, a national commercial development firm. He holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

Martin is a longtime leader in the commercial real estate development association NAIOP: he served as president of the NAIOP Georgia chapter in 1999 and went on to serve as national NAIOP Chairman in 2015. He won the NAIOP Georgia chapter's 2016 Award of Excellence, and he serves as an Industry Advisor / member of the ACRE 100 Leadership Council at the Alabama Center for Real Estate (University of Alabama's Culverhouse College of Business).

• Invests directly in commercial real estate, not startups — office, industrial, flex, business parks, land, and distressed notes.
• Targets value-add and opportunistic deals: assets priced below replacement cost, or with repositioning, management, or leasing challenges to solve.
• Typical transaction size roughly $5M–$50M, concentrated in metro Atlanta and the broader Southeast.
• Core stated philosophy: "You make your money when you buy it" — i.e., disciplined entry basis drives returns.
• Leverages long-standing operating relationships for property management, leasing, construction management, and asset management to execute the value-add plan.