Affordability remains a top concern for most in the current housing market. Increasingly, builders are placing an emphasis on affordability to deliver attainable, high-quality homes for would-be buyers.
Take National Home Corp. (NHC), for example. The home builder, founded in 2021, prominently displays the tagline “America’s Affordable Builder” on its company website—visually reinforcing its cost-centric ethos.
NHC prioritizes cost-effectiveness and price-per-square foot, with home prices starting as low as $75 per square foot in its operating markets of Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and Alabama. The builder’s Freedom Series includes eight plans ranging from 1,200 to 2,408 square feet with up to five bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and one- or two-car garages. The Liberty Series includes 10 larger home plans, reaching up to 4,000 square feet, six bedrooms, and four bathrooms. The largest plan in the Liberty Series—the six-bed, four-bath, 4,000-square-foot Taft plan—still starts in the $310,000s.
“By focusing on essential features and eliminating unnecessary costs, we’ve been able to deliver homes that are not only affordable but also spacious and functional,” NHC’s national vice president of sales and market Jason Walzer has previously said, describing the company’s approach.
This focus on affordability has resonated with buyers and fueled rapid growth for NHC and founder and CEO Wade Jurney. Jurney says 2024 was a year in which the company gained market share, refined operations, and further streamlined costs to reinforce its focus on affordability.
“Despite having major growth goals, we temporarily narrowed our geographic footprint [in 2024] in order to establish better operational efficiencies,” Jurney tells BUILDER. “And we always maintain focus on affordability.”
After debuting on the 2024 Builder 100 in the No. 148 spot with 304 closings in 2023, NHC jumped 70 spots to No. 78 spot on the 2025 Builder 100 with 747 closings in 2024. The large jump earns NHC the distinction as the biggest mover on the 2025 Builder 100.
Jurney is no stranger to fast-paced growth. In his decades-long career, he built Wade Jurney Homes (WJH) into BUILDER’s fastest-growing private company in 2015, 2016, and 2017. Also focused on affordable homes, WJH rose as high as No. 35 on the 2018 Builder 100 before being sold to Century Communities.
For NHC, integrity, transparency, honesty, and respect are central pillars of the business and customer-centricity remains its guiding North Star. In line with this mission, NHC donates $100 to HomeAid with every home closing.
Saddled with the same macroeconomic challenges in 2024 as all builders, Jurney says the market created the need for additional incentives to help buyers solve for affordability. He notes that a softening market presents opportunities for land-light builders such as NHC to continue expanding.
Looking ahead to 2025, Jurney says NHC’s goals are simple, but ambitious: continued growth and exploring more ways to make housing affordable. That growth, he says, will come from volume growth, market expansion, and “possibly an acquisition or two.” However, the same headwinds to affordability—lot and land costs as well as material and labor costs—continue to hamper the market, according to Jurney.
“We do everything we can think of to mitigate cost increases,” Jurney says. “Streamline processes, [utilize] efficient plans, and [pursue] tight but capital efficient margins.”
