Women Who Build: Sue Berk Takes on Dallas Home Construction

As a young girl in South Africa, Sue Berk learned the value of hard work and saving money. While working in advertising in New York City, she ate a bagel for lunch every day and skipped out on Starbucks runs with friends. She still shops at discount stores and doesn’t get her nails done to keep up with the Joneses. 

The Highland Park resident is a female home builder in a man’s world, and she’s not intimidated by anyone who says she can’t do something. 

Her strategy is simple. She builds one or two homes a year in neighborhoods close to her home — Devonshire and Elm Thicket/Northpark — and provides a quality product.

“We put an extraordinary amount of care into making sure the person who gets the house is happy,” she said. “A million things can go wrong with a house, and if anything goes wrong, we’re there. We like to stand behind our product. I’m a people person and I love meeting people, so we’ve become friends with all our buyers.” 

‘You Have to be Fearless’: Women Build Each Other up at Development Services Event

Building a Better Dallas

Berk’s husband, Brad Walters, is the other half of Berk Walters Homes. Walters has a full-time job at HF Sinclair Corporation but comes in as the “fixer,” completing minor repairs, hanging mirrors, and installing cabinet pulls. 

“He helps me a lot at night and on the weekends,” Berk said. “Every night we usually drive to the job site and see what we did that day.” 

Although she’s had a 30-year career that was “home-building adjacent,” Berk says she became a full-time builder in 2020. Prior to that, she worked for Fortune 500 companies and did everything from advertising to selling handmade ceramic crosses she made with a kiln. She still makes her own tile.

Berk bought a condo in 1996 at Preston Oaks Road and Montfort Drive and decided she’d renovate the whole thing herself. A couple of years later, she began flipping homes full-time and has renovated properties in Midway Hollow, Preston Hollow, and University Park. 

Since 2020, Berk has built eight houses. Her homes on the Bird Streets are listed in the $1.75 million range; she has a $2.75 million home in Devonshire slated for completion this month. She also built the home that she and Walters live in with their teenage son and daughter. 

“I have my fingers in every aspect of my builds because if you don’t, things go wrong,” Berk said. 

How does she sell the homes? Well, it doesn’t hurt that Berk has almost 16,000 Instagram followers. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sue Berk-Builder (@berk_walters_homes)

The builder taps into her creative side by posting progression time-lapse videos on Instagram and showing before and after photos. 

“I’ll take a video of the bathroom when it’s just sticks, and then I’ll come back and film the rest when it’s finished,” she said. “At night when I’m watching ‘Survivor,’ I’ll just work on my videos.” 

Sue Berk’s Secrets of Success

When Berk found half an acre in Highland Park in 2016, she was working at Texas Instruments. She tried to find a builder and her co-workers suggested she do it herself. 

“I hired the best of the best,” she said. “I looked up the most expensive builders in Highland Park. I knew what I was doing on the inside of the house. It was the foundation, the framing, the roof, and the windows that I didn’t really know what exactly to do.” 

Berk acknowledged that not everyone starting out in the home building industry can afford to hire the most expensive builders. The construction management program at Collin College has seen an increase in female enrollment, CandysDirt.com reported in 2022, and Berk said she’s pleased to see young women who are interested in the craft. 

Her advice for the next generation of female builders is simple.

“I started a long time ago saving money, like, putting money in the bank,” she said.

She moved to the U.S. — Houston, to be exact — at age 14 and promptly got a job at Baskin Robbins.

“I was so excited to make money,” she said. “My parents were Depression-era people. My mother was a Holocaust survivor. I grew up hearing that Americans were so wasteful. You don’t spend more than you have. If somebody wants to do this in the future, they need to start saving money now. I don’t speak for every builder, but for me, I had to put some money away.”

The Cost of Doing Business

These days it’s hard to find dirt for less than $2 million, but when Berk was starting out, she would find a condo for about $60,000, put about $5,000 in to renovate it while she lived there, and sell it for a profit.

 She also pays her contractors immediately when a job is finished. 

“I don’t try to barter with them,” she said. “Communication is huge. I think that’s where women have an advantage over male builders. By nature, we just communicate more.” 

The future is bright for Berk Walters. The home at 5750 Southwestern Blvd. has a buyer and Berk will soon be pouring the foundation at 4903 Wenonah St. 

“I’d love to build a new house for ourselves,” Berk said. “My son has four more years [in high school] so we’re not planning on moving out of the Park Cities anytime soon. Our house was the very first house I built, and now I’ve got all these ideas. I’m constantly looking for a lot. I’d love to build a duplex, like a multifamily if the right thing came up. I’d love to build a lakehouse. That would just be a fun thing to do. I’m always wanting to do something different.”