CORE taps Michael Guerra to lead Brooklyn expansion

As it pushes into new territory outside Manhattan, CORE has tapped longtime agent and manager Michael Guerra to lead the firm’s expansion into Brooklyn.

Guerra — who has done a fair amount of brokerage-hopping in recent years — was most recently at Brown Harris Stevens, where he spent just five months. At CORE, he’ll serve as the firm’s Brooklyn sales manager.

In April, CEO Shaun Osher [TRDataCustom] announced CORE’s plans to tap the Brooklyn market with a 20-agent office at 180 Smith Street in Cobble Hill. That office opened in June, giving CORE a total of five offices, including outposts in Chelsea, the Flatiron District, Union Square and Upper East Side.

This isn’t Guerra’s first time helming a company’s expansion into Brooklyn’s increasingly competitive brokerage world, where CORE’s rivals include Corcoran Group, Douglas Elliman, Halstead Property and Citi Habitats, which last year acquired Brooklyn-based Aptsandlofts.com.

Guerra spent seven years at Douglas Elliman, where he helped expand the behemoth’s presence in Brooklyn, and he was then hired to do the same for Warburg Realty in 2014.  When that effort failed to gain momentum, he joined Brown Harris Stevens this March.

Founded by Osher and the Cayre family in 2005, CORE is among the largest mid-sized firms in Manhattan, with nearly 160 agents and $293.6 million in listings, according to a TRD ranking in May 2016. In October 2013, Related Companies acquired a 50 percent stake in CORE for an undisclosed sum.