Professional Profile
Byron Smith, Sr. is the president of Metropolitan Realty Group, Inc. (“Metropolitan”) located in Vienna, Virginia. Metropolitan provides real estate advisory and brokerage services to its clients as well as commercial real estate education and training services both domestically and internationally.
Professional Background
For more than 45 years, Byron has been a real estate investor, attorney and real estate broker in the Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia real estate markets. He has served as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as a real estate attorney for a large Washington, D.C. K Street law firm. Over the past 45 years he has invested in multi-family and office properties in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
CCIM Institute and Professional Affiliation Experience
Over the past 25 years Byron has served the CCIM Institute (www.ccim.com) in many leadership roles. He has served as a member of the Institute's Board of Directors, a member of the Board of Directors of the CCIM Education Foundation (www.ccimef.org ), chair of the Faculty Committee, chair of the Body of Knowledge Committee as well as the Institute's Presidential Liaison for Education. He has also served as the CCIM Institute's liaison to the People’s Republic of China.
Instructional Background
Byron has been a member of the CCIM Institute's Faculty for 26 years. He currently teaches Financial Analysis for Commercial Investment Real Estate (CI 101), Investment Analysis for Commercial Investment Real Estate (CI 104) and the Course Concepts and Review course (preparation for the CCIM comprehensive exam). From 1997 to 2009 he taught the Institute's Commercial Market Analysis course (CI 102). He has provided commercial real estate training to thousands of real estate professionals, investors and government officials in the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, India and Mexico as well as throughout the continental U.S. Over the years he has received numerous faculty awards including the Senior Instructor of the Year for CI 101, the Senior Instructor of the Year for CI 102 and the Robert L. Ward Instructor of the Year (the faculty's highest teaching award).
Founder, CCIM Institute's Cultural Diversity Education Program
The Cultural Diversity Education Program ("CDEP") was created within the CCIM Institute in 2002. The purpose of the program is to develop a critical mass of minority CCIM designees who can positively impact their respective communities and the commercial real estate industry in general. The CDEP reaches out to minority groups (e.g., Asian-American, Hispanic, African-American, Native American) that have historically been underrepresented in the commercial real estate industry. Through this program, minority real estate professionals are introduced to the CCIM Institute's education, technology and networking. Since the program’s inception, more than 1,600 minority real estate practitioners have been introduced to the CCIM Institute's education program, the CCIM Institute and the commercial real estate industry. Many of these participants have gone on to earn the CCIM Designation and to become leaders in the commercial real estate industry.
Education
Byron received his Bachelor of Arts degree from The George Washington University where he majored in political science and economics. He received his Juris Doctorate degree from The Rutgers University School of Law. He also attended the Rutgers University Graduate School of Business Administration where he concentrated on the areas of real estate and finance.