Ben Horning grew up on construction sites before he could really remember anything else. His dad’s path into the business started with an unusual deal in a restaurant parking lot back in the mid 1970s, trading a couple thousand dollars for a compressor, a nail gun, and the rest of a small framing operation from a guy who was ready to move on. That purchase eventually grew into Berks Homes, the company Ben now runs as president alongside his sister Katie, building close to 480 homes a year across central and southeastern Pennsylvania.
In this conversation with Michael Krisa, Ben talks about how Berks Homes has built its strategy around staying out of the way of the big national builders, mainly because of what happens to land prices once those companies move into a market. He explains how that approach has shaped where the company chooses to build, the kind of buyer they serve, and why townhomes make up such a large share of their work.
“No, I mean, that’s not really a concern. More or less on the land side because anywhere they go and they’re entrenched, they inflate the land values to a point where it’s just really challenging for us little guys to battle with them.”
From there, the conversation moves into how buyer expectations have shifted over the years, especially around what people now consider standard in a new home, and how easy access to information has changed the way buyers walk into a sales office. Ben shares his thoughts on price sensitivity too, and what a small bump in price can do to traffic in a community.
“It’s a huge challenge, and we’re extremely price sensitive in some of our neighborhoods. Sell a couple, and I’m only talking about raising a price by like $2,500. Raise that, and then all of a sudden crickets for two weeks.”
Ben also opens up about a chapter of his career that began during the recession, when he chose to leave the family business for a while rather than put his father in a difficult spot. That experience shaped a lot of how he thinks about leadership today, including how he approaches putting people in roles that fit who they actually are.
“Putting people in the right seats to me is just connecting them with their skills and passions, and selfishly, we benefit, right? But if you have a happy employee, you’re probably gonna do well more times than not.”
There’s a good stretch on land too, where Ben breaks down how Berks Homes sources and develops the ground they build on, and how data centers have started popping up in unexpected places, changing land values and the buying experience for entire neighborhoods almost overnight.
“I have a neighborhood right now that was selling phenomenally well, and directly adjacent to it, the developer sold it to a data center and basically made four or five times the amount of money he would’ve in half the time. And now my neighborhood is struggling because the buyers know that site’s near there.”
Michael and Ben also get into what it’s like running a family business with his sister Katie, how their roles complement each other, and how their parents set things up in a way that kept the family close even though only two of the five siblings ended up in the business.
“We always agree at the end. Doesn’t mean we agree on everything up front. We’re two separate people, but it’s never hard to convince one another of the idea, and we have a phenomenal relationship with my dad. It is such a non-issue because we care so much about the other’s happiness that if I can make her happy, I’m happy, and if she can make me happy, she’s happy.”
Toward the end, the conversation turns to AI, the trades, and how different the permitting process looks today compared to when Ben’s dad was getting approvals with little more than a handshake and a hundred dollar bill. Ben shares what he thinks AI can and can’t do for a business like this, and what he’d tell his own kids, or anyone weighing a future in construction, about what the work actually demands and what it gives back.
“AI’s not gonna negotiate with a land seller the way that a person can. AI’s not gonna sell most homeowners. It might sell some, but AI’s not gonna sell homes to people and shake their hand on a contract. AI is not going to get the trades to do something in a home by a certain time to wrap the project up like a superintendent’s gonna do on the job site. There’s a lot of relational aspects that I think AI is an incredible, monumental gift in the whole world right now that can be really good. But fear-mongering that it’s gonna ruin everything is probably way too exaggerated because nothing can replace people and the way that you make me feel in a conversation and I make you feel, it can’t replace it.”
Ben Horning is the president of Berks Homes, a family-owned homebuilder in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. He’s been in construction for over 21 years — long enough to have seen the industry from just about every angle.
Ben grew up around the family business, which gave him an early appreciation for what it takes to build something that lasts. After college, he spent four years in Land Development before striking out on his own in 2009 — not exactly ideal timing, given the state of the housing market. He ran his remodeling company for a decade anyway, figuring things out as he went, and came back to homebuilding in 2019 to take on a role he’d had in the back of his mind for a long time.
As a second-generation owner, he came into the COO seat with a clear priority: get the right people in the right positions and give them room to do their best work. The last two years have been largely about that — building structure that creates opportunity, and developing leaders who can carry things forward without everything running through him.
He lives in Downingtown, PA with his wife and three kids. When he’s not at the office, he’s probably on a sideline somewhere watching one of his kids play, trying to stay active, and loudly rooting for every Philadelphia team regardless of their current record.
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