Jordan Vaughan spent his childhood too afraid of dogs to even walk into a room where one was resting. By the time he turned 13, that fear had flipped into something close to obsession, and he was training dogs professionally, learning under a mentor in the Atlanta area, discovering that people were paying $40,000 for a single animal.
He built a business around something that used to terrify him, and in this conversation he tells me how the confidence that came from that transition carried him straight into homebuilding, an industry he entered with no family history in construction and no one standing behind him telling him how any of it worked.
“I had no idea that people were selling dogs for $40,000, $50,000. I thought that was insane and realized that was an entire industry. That is what kind of launched me into the dog business, I love this as a passion, this is something I see you can make great money in. Let me look at it and let me launch it.”
We talk through how COVID pushed him toward real estate almost by accident, sitting at a computer studying wholesaling and short term rentals while his dog business kept running in the background. He and a partner started small, arbitraging Airbnb rentals, then moved into fix and flip work in Atlanta in 2022, right as interest rates started climbing. That timing mattered. Jordan walks me through what it actually costs when a general contractor manages five projects at once and starts pulling money from one job to cover shortfalls on another, and how that pattern grew into a legal fight over nearly $900,000 in unfinished renovation work. He is candid about what that experience taught him, particularly around how he vets a GC now, down to visiting active job sites and watching how subcontractors greet the contractor when he walks through the door.
“If you don’t have a GC that’s managing the finances correctly, a lot of them are robbing Peter to pay Paul, and they are not managing their project finances correctly. What happens when project A overruns, they’re pulling from your project, or when Susie’s project overruns, they’re pulling from your project, and the money has to come from somewhere.”
From there we get into the capital side of the business, which Jordan has clearly spent a lot of time thinking through. He describes what it felt like running 20 projects at once and realizing the company was carrying more than $150,000 a month in interest payments alone, and how finding lenders willing to roll interest into a reserve account changed the entire financial posture of Harbor Development Group. He also explains why he moved away from traditional bank financing early on and what he looks for now in a private capital partner, someone who understands change orders and cost increases instead of treating a signed contract as the end of the conversation.
“That is the biggest thing. You really need a financial partner who truly understands what builders go through. You don’t need a partner who is gonna take a week or two weeks to fund a draw. You’ve got subcontractors who need to be paid, and most smaller subcontractors want to be paid within a few days. Once you grow and negotiate better terms, you get some relief there, but starting out, you have to have cash readily available.”
Jordan also opens up about how Harbor Development Group decides where to build. He breaks down the absorption rate differences between markets just a few counties apart in Georgia, and why a $2 million home can sell in 30 days in one county and sit for 90 in another. We talk about the signature details that show up in Harbor homes, gas sconces on the front elevation, mitered corners instead of corner boards, white oak accents inside, and a small cast plaque at the edge of every driveway. He points to a coastal build in Fernandina Beach that he still drives past just to look at, and describes what it meant to hear the couple who bought it call it their forever home.
“The buyers who purchased the home are incredibly happy with it. They absolutely love the house and consider it their dream home. They’re a retired couple who chose this as the home they want to spend the rest of their lives in.
They were a military family, so they’ve lived in many different places and homes throughout Hawaii, Singapore, and the DMV area. They’ve experienced a lot of different homes over the years, which makes it especially meaningful that they said this is the home they’ve loved the most.
For them to say, “This is the home we love the most, and we want to spend the rest of our lives here,” meant a lot to us.”
He talks about what it was like walking into the International Builders Show for the first time, surrounded by people solving the exact same problems he was working through on his own, and why he now takes his entire team every year. He credits the National Association of Home Builders and events like the Parade of Homes for shaping how Harbor Development Group approaches design, staying close to what buyers want without chasing every trend that shows up in a magazine.
“It’s just a bunch of people, everybody doing the same thing as you. I was really shocked to hear multiple guys right next to me solving problems that I’m solving myself. I realized, this is literally our Super Bowl. You meet so many trade partners, so many suppliers, vendors, partners.”
Toward the end, Jordan gets reflective about leadership, about investing in the people on his team beyond a paycheck, and about the tradeoff every driven founder eventually has to sit with, the time spent building a company instead of spending it with family. It is a candid, detailed look at how a fear of dogs somehow led to luxury homebuilding, and what it actually takes to protect investor capital while scaling a spec development business from the ground up.
“When you’re growing a company, you spend a lot of time away from family. You spend a lot of time away from friends, and you’re so locked in and so driven, that I’ve lost a few, a lot of family members. I think back and wish I had just spent a little bit more time with them, talked, and really realized how precious that time was.”
About Jordan Vaughan
Jordan Vaughan is the Founder and CEO of Harbor Development Group, a residential development company building luxury homes across Georgia and Northeast Florida. A University of Georgia graduate, he built his foundation in financial markets and investment strategy before turning that experience toward real estate development. His work is guided by faith and a focus on integrity, quality, and lasting value in the communities he builds. Outside of work, Jordan enjoys traveling, fishing, and spending time with his family and his two dogs.
Harbor Development Group: https://www.harbordevgroup.com
Instagram: @harbor.development
Linkedln: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harbor-development-group
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