Leap of Faith
Steve Burris took a leap of faith in 2010 when he stepped away from a 15-year executive position with Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby to open his own real estate business. Burris had worked in real estate as a part-time agent while at Hobby Lobby, but made the commitment to his own firm because he had a passion for the industry and a vision for fundamentally changing how the real estate industry could work.
Shortly after hanging out the shingle on his business, Kevo Properties, life threw the Burris family some unexpected curveballs. His wife, Brandi, was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer. It was only the first of several devastating challenges for the blended family with seven children.
In addition to Brandi’s cancer diagnosis, their youngest child was injured in a sledding accident and underwent extensive plastic surgery. Their 13-year-old son was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and their 25-year-old son died unexpectedly.
All of this, and Burris had just left the security of corporate health care coverage. He now relied on private insurance that came with a $10,000 annual deductible.
“When I was working at Hobby Lobby, we had $200 deductibles,” Burris says. “It was a big challenge because we didn’t have any money. I mean, we liquidated all of our savings to keep Kevo going for the first three years.” It was absolutely the most challenging period of Burris’ career and life.
However, the Burris family weathered its health care and financial crisis. Brandi survived breast cancer after three years of treatment, and his business began to flourish.
“We weren’t making very much money, so we just juggled a lot to keep the doors open,” he says.
Today, Burris operates Kevo Properties with over 300 real estate agents and offices in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa. It is headquartered at NW 50th and Shartel, directly across the street from what was once a popular Hyde Drug Store location where Burris was store manager in a previous life.
Burris describes the late Hyde Drug founder, Homer Hyde, as well as Hobby Lobby founder David Green as career mentors. He also cites the value of belonging to a peer networking group like Vistage to help solve difficult business situations that arise along the way.
Now a published author, Burris, 56, put the wisdom gained from those mentors and his own business experience into a book entitled “Real Estate Mentoring: Unlocking the Hope Inside Every One of Us.”
An Oklahoma City native who grew up in The Village, the Burris family now lives in Nichols Hills, less than a mile from the home in which he was raised.
Burris remains proud of his Oklahoma City roots and cites the friendliness of its people, those awesome Oklahoma sunsets and diversity of its restaurants among the many attributes that attract and keep people here.
“OKC is easy to get around, you’re just 15 minutes away from anything you want to go to,” Burris says. “Our restaurant selections are better than most big cities, And the selection of wines in Oklahoma City is better than Dallas.” Current family restaurant favorites include those in the Chisholm Creek area, as well as the new Omni Hotel.
“We now are either at Uncle Julio’s over in Chisholm Creek, which we think is really good for that part of the area, or Bob’s Chop House in the Omni Hotel,” he says. “We’ve stayed there. It’s gorgeous.”
Other favorite Burris family outings include the Jones Assembly downtown, as well as Thunder games (pre-pandemic), for which they are season ticket holders.
With its location in the geographic heart of the state, Oklahoma City is easily accessible to the rest of Oklahoma and beyond. “I think Oklahoma City is a hub to get anywhere in the state within two hours, great places to go to, cabins, vacation, lakes,” Burris says. “And our airport has just added the new wing, so we’re going to have more and more direct flights.”
For the Oklahoma City native who took a leap of faith to open his own firm over a decade ago, he is now welcoming new Oklahomans from across the nation who are relocating here. “We’re getting people from New York, California, all over who just want a better deal, who can work remote and still have their same job,” he says. “People are shocked at what kind of homes you can get here for the price. You don’t have to live in New Jersey and pay three times the price.”