Sue Burke learned the value of hard work and thrift as a young girl in South Africa. When she worked in advertising in New York City, she ate a bagel for lunch every day and forgot to go to Starbucks with friends. She still shops at discount stores and doesn’t go to the nail salon to keep up with her neighbors.
The Highland Park resident is a woman working in homebuilding in a man’s world, but she isn’t intimidated by people who tell her she can’t do it.
Her strategy is simple: She builds one to two homes a year in the Devonshire and Elm Thicket/North Park areas near her home and provides a quality product.
“We take extraordinary care to make sure that people who buy our homes are satisfied,” she says, “There are a million things that can go wrong with a home, and if something does go wrong, we’re there. We want to stand behind our product. I’m a social person and I love meeting people, so we’ve become friends with all of our buyers.”
Building a Better Dallas
Burke’s husband, Brad Walters, is the other owner of Burke Walters Homes. Walters has a full-time job at HF Sinclair but comes in as a “fixer,” doing small repairs, hanging mirrors, installing cabinet handles, etc.
“He helps out a lot in the evenings and on weekends,” Burke said. “Every night we usually drive down to the site and go over what we’ve done that day.”
Burke said he’s been “working in residential construction” for 30 years, but became a full-time architect in 2020. Before that, he worked for a Fortune 500 company and did everything from advertising to selling handmade kiln-made ceramic crucifixes, and he still makes his own tiles.
Burke bought the apartment at the intersection of Preston Oaks Road and Monfort Drive in 1996 and decided to renovate it all herself, and a few years later she began flipping homes full time, renovating properties in Midway Hollow, Preston Hollow and University Park.
Since 2020, Burke has built eight homes, including her Bird Street home, which is on the market for $1.75 million, and a $2.75 million house in Devonshire that’s due for completion this month. She also built the home she and Walters share with their teenage son and daughter.
“I’m involved in every aspect of my work because if I’m not, things don’t work,” Burke said.
How will she sell a house? Well, it doesn’t hurt that Burke has nearly 16,000 followers on Instagram.
The builder is flexing his creative muscles by posting time-lapse videos of his progress on Instagram and sharing before and after photos.
“I’ll shoot a video of the bathroom with the rod still in it, then come back and shoot the rest of it,” she says. “I’ll watch Survivor at night and work on the video.”
Sue Burke’s secret to success
Burke was working at Texas Instruments when she found a half-acre lot in Highland Park in 2016. She tried to find a builder, but her coworkers suggested she do it herself.
“I hired the best contractors,” she said, “I looked into the most expensive builders in Highland Park. I knew what I was going to do inside the house. I just wasn’t really sure what to do specifically with the foundation, framing, roof and windows.”
Burke acknowledged that not everyone starting out in the homebuilding industry can afford to hire the highest-paid contractors. Collin College’s construction management program has seen an increase in female enrollment, CandysDirt.com reported in 2022, and Burke said she’s pleased that young women are becoming interested in the profession.
Her advice to the next generation of female architects is simple:
“I started saving money a long time ago, putting it in the bank and things like that,” she said.
She moved to the United States (Houston to be exact) at the age of 14 and soon got a job at Baskin-Robbins.
“I was excited to make money,” she says, “My parents were from the Depression era. My mother was a Holocaust survivor. I grew up hearing that Americans are spendthrifts. You don’t spend more than you have. If you want to do this in the future, you need to start saving money now. I don’t speak for all builders, but in my case, I had to save some money.”
Cost of doing business
It’s hard to find a property for under $2 million these days, but when Burke first started out, he would find a condo for around $60,000, renovate it for around $5,000 while living in it, and then sell it at a profit.
She also pays contractors as soon as the job is done.
“I don’t try to barter with them,” she says. “Communication is very important. I think that’s where women have an advantage over male builders. We’re just naturally good communicators.”
The future is bright for Burke Walters: The home at 5750 Southwestern Boulevard has a buyer, and Burke will soon begin groundwork on 4903 Wenona Road.
“We want to build a new house for ourselves,” Burke said. “My son has four more years. [in high school] So I don’t plan on moving out of Park City anytime soon. Ours was the first house I built, and now I have a lot of ideas. I’m always looking for land. When I find the right one, I want to build a two-story house, like a duplex. I want to build a lakefront home. I think that would be fun. I’m always looking to do something different.”
