A local homebuilder and developer focuses on what buyers want in a home [Video]

Doug Childers/Homes Correspondent

Editor’s note: This is an installment in the HOMES Spotlight series, which features residential developers, homebuilders and brokerages in Greater Richmond.

Vernon McClure didn’t set out to be a homebuilder and developer.

He grew up on a dairy farm in Franklin County, and after graduating from high school, he thought he’d carry on the family’s farming tradition. He even studied agriculture at Virginia Tech. But after spending a year working for Southern States Cooperative Inc., he caught the real estate bug. He started selling homes when he turned 25.

“I was young and didn’t know how hard it was,” he said, with a laugh.

In addition to selling condominiums in Blacksburg, McClure built and sold three houses in the Smith Mountain Lake area. Then he moved to Richmond in 1987 and began building and selling homes for the local market. By the mid-1990s, he’d become president of MidAtlantic Builders and …