Robert Burns grew up in the Midwest and wanted to conduct orchestras. His college education led him in that direction, but at age 20, he took a “fork in the road” right into the real estate business and, within a few years of getting his degree, to the East Coast. On Sept. 1, Burns and his family were back in the Midwest, Greater Des Moines to be exact, where he still applies some music theory to his successful career in the real estate business.

Why are you in real estate?
I wanted to be an orchestra conductor; that was the dream. It was very much a financial decision that caused me to take the fork in the road. The amount of time and effort all while being extremely poor trying to break into that field — I didn’t want that struggle. It’s a very long struggle to break into a field where worldwide there might be 50 people making a living at it. There are a lot of people doing it who are not making a living. I think a lot, even more than you might think, translates into the business world: getting people to cooperate and the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Still, that’s a big jump, from conducting an orchestra to selling houses.
When I went into real estate, it was instant; I had found what I wanted to do. So residential real estate is all I have ever done as a career. That’s unique. Usually real estate is a second or even a third career. I think what translates most to business from the music world is chasing the last 1 percent of perfection. In music, you rehearse, you rehearse, you rehearse and usually you are 95 percent of the way there, then you are closer to 96 percent of the way there, and every percentage point that you fight for, closer to 100 percent. You redouble your efforts to get to be a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. So chasing that excellence is definitely what’s translated from my study of music to my career in real estate.

You spent several years on the East Coast. This must be a slower-paced market.
It is a slow-paced market, but what attracted me to this role was that instead of having a tiny sliver of a gigantic pie, it was a chance to have my destiny in my hands, having the whole pie. I feel like somebody took me off my leash and let me run. It is exciting but also scary.

Did you fret that you might be giving up more career opportunities by leaving the East Coast?
On a personal level, it was a real easy decision for us to come back to Iowa. My wife has roots in north-central Iowa. I’m a Midwestern guy from Minneapolis. While we were on the East Coast, we had two boys who are now 8 and 5 years old. So on a personal level, we could move here and make sure our kids could have relationships with their grandparents and their cousins. On a personal level, it was an easy box to check. 

You had turned down other offers to return to the Midwest.
The other opportunities that were coming to me were a situation where I would be reporting to the granddaughter of the founder or the cousin of the person who built the company who really didn’t come up in the business and didn’t understand the business, and I felt that really would have put me in a vulnerable situation. This company is family-owned and family-operated, and it’s a local company. We’re not owned by an out-of-state conglomerate, but we’re run by a board of trustees made up of very competent business leaders from Central Iowa. That gives me a level of comfort that we’re being run by successful business people who had developed a level of competence prior to coming here and I wouldn’t have to worry about the whims of somebody who inherited the business from whomever started it. In this case, it was Marvin Pomerantz. It was a professional board of trustees that really prompted me to listen to the recruiter’s proposal. That and the fact that it was a Coldwell Banker brand that I know, I love, I trust. It has a lot of history, a lot of legacy, and I found the people in the organization to be really strong, best in class.

Has the approach to selling homes changed since the housing crisis?
I think the biggest change has been the financing landscape and being extra careful that people can afford the home they are buying and we’re not putting consumers in a situation that leaves them vulnerable should there be a future downturn. I think the approach always should have been the same, but now we are just doubly careful to ask better questions to make sure we are putting people in a sustainable situation.

Has that degree of caution slowed the process?
We’re not back to the boom levels. I’m not sure it would be healthy if we were. That’s not a sustainable pace. We’re still growing, and the demand is still growing in Iowa. What I look at is jobs. Jobs are the No. 1 driver of the housing market. You can have upticks if you don’t have positive job growth, but those are unsustainable. I see sustained improvement in jobs, the Des Moines metro area continues to outpace the national average on job growth, and that job growth is creating a sustainable appreciating housing market. Not an unsustainable bubble like we had in the run-up.

You have made a lot of career advancements in a fairly short time. What advice do you have for other people who want to follow your career trajectory?
A few weeks ago, someone asked me how to get into a similar track. My advice was always do the right thing, never compromise your integrity, and when opportunities arise, say “yes.” There’s nothing special to it. It’s showing up and doing what you said you would do and doing the right thing. That is my advice in general for a career in business. Don’t think about the end result. Just think about excellence in the moment. A lot of people want instant gratification, and I never ever thought about that. My first manager (when he was with Coldwell Banker Burnet in Minnesota), his advice was that success and money are a side effect of doing good business.