| Mining gold as others fled the field
T he year 2009 was a memorable one — the U.S. launched its final space mission to the Hubble Telescope, the H1N1 strain of the flu was declared a global pandemic and Barack Obama was inaugurated as the country’s first African-American president.
 Near Charlotte, N.C., a young, married lawyer who initially had set his mind on becoming a sports agent, had some tough choices to make. Although Josh Costner had worked for a general practice law firm, he really didn’t want to continue down that path.
“I had a real estate license, so I thought about commercial real estate,” recalls Josh, now 38, founder and CEO of Costner Law Office. “I knew it would take me a long time to earn a paycheck in commercial real estate, so I decided to hang my own shingle and at the same time build my law firm.”
That was a bold move considering 2009 was during the Great Recession, when housing prices were plummeting (resulting in few transactions), mom-and-pop title companies were closing their doors and settlement attorneys were scrambling for new sources of income.
“We did have some national settlement companies, especially doing refis, and I [questioned] why can’t I do what they’re doing?” Josh recalls asking himself back then. “I started to pick up a little following. I got in there and found a need for someone who gave great service along with good quality legal work. Usually, it was kind of one or the other.”
What started as a one-man shop, today is one of the fastest-growing private firms in America, with Costner Law focusing on residential, commercial and new construction real estate transactions throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida.
The Charlotte Business Journal recognized the firm as one of the Top 50 fastest growing private companies in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, and it made the Inc. 5000 List in 2015 and 2017. Costner also is CEO of Ark Title Group.
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“I never saw [settlement work] as a way to make a quick buck. To do it for a long time, you have to do a good job. It can’t just be good service — that’s a given.”
Josh Costner
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When he launched in 2009, Costner cultivated the few relationships he had with real estate professionals in and around Charlotte. As many attorneys were getting out of settlement work, that created opportunities. So Costner said he started doing real estate-related legal work for friends and contract work for other attorneys who were shifting their focus to other areas.
“What I learned quickly, at least here in N.C., being an attorney state, we had a bunch of lawyers who were so used to the good times, they assumed the business would always come to them,” Josh remembers. “They didn’t necessarily hustle very hard to actually go get the business.
“I didn’t have any overhead,” he says. “I was able to start this thing out lean and I was able to keep it that way for quite some time, and be smart about where I spent money.”
Costner said one of the keys to his firm’s success was that he has always maintained a long-term view of the settlement industry.
“I never saw it as a way to make a quick buck. To do it for a long time, you have to do a good job. It can’t just be good service — that’s a given,” Josh insists. “You also have to focus on the quality of the title work you do.”
That viewpoint guided him as he expanded the firm and as he selected members of this team.
“We have employees who might not make as much money as if they went to the shop next door, but they can all sleep at night knowing that the work that was put in was good and respected by clients,” Josh points out. “That’s helped us with the types of clients we have started to pick up over the years.”
Although he doesn’t have a ton of free time with a growing business and family (he and his wife Carmen have sons Rylan and Deacon and twin daughters Violet and Scarlett), Josh says he enjoys family outing such as going to the beach and date nights with his wife.
He said he also enjoys playing sports and attending Providence Baptist Church in Harrisburg, N.C.
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