Fortner rebranding home construction business

Luke Fortner rebranded his new home construction business for clarity and emphasis about his passion and focus ­­— homebuilding.

Fortner Homes, originally Fortner Properties, is a Wilson-based business offering newly constructed homes and design.

“We birthed in 2020 as Fortner Properties,” Fortner said. “It was good, but it wasn’t a clear brand. Properties, people want to know if we do rentals, if we’re real estate agents, if we’re a property management company. We knew the confusion was there, so we knew it was time going into this new season now. We’re Fortner Homes: quality built, family focused.”

The Roanoke, Virginia, native was a worship pastor in Middlesex before falling into the world of homebuilding. After building one property as a rental in 2019, Fortner said he was hooked. Now, Fortner said, the company is building an average of 50 new homes annually.

“The goal, the longterm vision, is to do about 250 homes per year between 10 markets,” Fortner said. “There’s definitely a need. We’re currently building in Wilson County, Johnston County, Nash County and Craven County. We’ve got a plan to expand into another new market in 2026 close to home, but not in this county.”

Wilson, he said, is the biggest market.

“Everything has changed so fast,” Fortner said. “It’s growing and growing and growing, and it’s going to keep growing. It’s kind of this hidden gem. You’re an hour and a half, two hours to the beach. In 30 minutes, you can be pretty much anywhere. It’s just a really good centrally located place. Wilson is home. It’s different because we weren’t born, bred, raised here, but we love it. We love the community. It’s tight knit.”

Fortner said his mission statement is bringing the joy of beautiful homes within reach.

“We know that right now, homeownership and home affordability is without a lot of people’s reach,” Fortner said. “What really separates us as a product line that we take pride in is that if you go to a national company, they advertise a price and it’s the lowest thing in town. They show you this beautiful model home and go, ‘Oh, you want this and this and this and this?’ Suddenly, that $250,000 home is now $400,000. We’re definitely priced lower than those guys, but we’re also giving you more quality than those guys are going to give.”

As often as he can, Fortner said he tries to subcontract locally.

“We’re the new guys in town, but we want everybody to survive and thrive,” Fortner said. “We have over 250 sub(contractors). Maybe 85% of them are all local. We’ve got vendor supply that comes through that isn’t local, but we try to stay local.”

Fortner said the average cost of one of his newly constructed home is between $300,000 to $400,000. He said the biggest factor in cost is land, which he says has more than doubled in price over the last five years.

“We have kind of a wide range,” Fortner said. “We have a product in Wilson County that starts at $389,000 and goes all the way up to $500,000. We did another project over on Jetstream (Drive) that’s in the mid-$200,000s. We know the pricing. We know where we need to stay at. Can we get people into a home? That’s the goal of it.”

Christopher Long is The Wilson Times’ business reporter. If you have ideas for this weekly column, reach out to him at 252-265-7821 or [email protected].