At age 24, most young adults are just beginning their careers in entry-level jobs with starting salaries, but Adam Davidson had a more ambitious goal. He was founder, president, and chief executive officer of his own home building business, Davidson Homes, just a couple years after his college graduation.
Davidson graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a bachelor’s degree in business management and entrepreneurship. In school, he realized he would eventually need to focus on a particular industry so he drew on inspiration from an uncle who built homes.
“I started researching the home building industry and really embraced it,” says Davidson. “I applied to a bunch of different places in the Southeast and got my big shot with one of the public builders in Gulfport, Mississippi, as a superintendent.”
After two years at the company, Davidson decided he could do it on his own. He moved to Huntsville, Ala., and started Davidson Homes in 2009. His first success that year was selling his first home in Priceville, Ala. In following years, Davidson bought lots from developers and took a gamble with more affordable homes. He developed his first community in Priceville, Ala., in 2011. By the end of 2012 the company had closed 39 homes, which allowed Davidson to hire his first superintendent and sales agent. The company has since expanded to 36 total employees. Davidson says he has had the most luck retaining employees by hiring workers who know someone internally.
In 2017, Davidson Homes also expanded beyond its founding city. The company broke into the Nashville market and most recently, into the Raleigh, N.C. area this year. The company now has 12 active communities with 12 more on the way.
Courtesy Davidson Homes
“We expect to be building in 24 communities by the end of the year,” says Davidson. “We look for markets with strong job growth and areas with strategic partnership opportunities with capital firms or land bankers.”
Davidson’s rise was not without challenges. Besides some additional learning curves, he started his business in 2009, a rough year for the economy, and in an area he hadn’t previously worked in. His advice for young builders is to “work for a large company first, but not for too long. You want to learn the business and best practices, but you don’t want to become dependent on your salary/pay if you want to run your own company.”
Future plans for the company include getting its Raleigh communities off the ground and to expand its offerings in Huntsville and Nashville. In five years, Davidson hopes to be in seven markets by adding one market per year.
“I truly believe in hard work and surrounding myself with good people both inside and outside of my company,” says Davidson. “The desire to grow, recognize who we are, and strive for more is contagious.”
