WeVett helps navigate VA Home Loan process

When Air Force veteran Evan Kaufman witnessed firsthand the difficulty of navigating the VA Home Loan process, he built a company to fix it.

“I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, which is coincidentally considered the ‘Air Capital’ of the world and a center of entrepreneurship. The influences of entrepreneurship met me at a young age,” he explained. “I started my first company, Grassmasters Landscaping, in high school and ended up successfully selling that business right before college.”

Building businesses was always on his mind but so was raising his right hand to serve.

“As an old man looking back at my life, my family and the businesses I built, I wanted to be able to say that I was willing to die to protect them if the need arose,” Kaufman shared. “Going to the United States Air Force Academy after high school allowed me to continue to learn and grow but also set me on a track toward fulfilling that vital duty to my country.”

He played on the football team and graduated in 2013 as an engineering officer. Kaufman served for five years before leaving the Air Force. 

“As Americans, we’re incredibly fortunate to have freedoms that other countries simply do not. I’m grateful for the freedoms we have which is why I signed up to defend them,” he said. 

While in the service, Kaufman built a reputation as “the real estate guy”.

“Once I was commissioned, I headed to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio to begin my career as a contracting officer. I was interested in acquiring real estate as investments and secured my real estate license to begin building my portfolio,” he explained. “During my time there, I built up a strong mix of both short-term and long-term rentals.”

His transition from service left Kaufman and his wife feeling grateful for the friendships they’d formed and experiences they had as an Air Force family. Kaufman also drew on his time in real estate, navigating the challenges military families faced in finding homes in between moves. 

“It turns out there was a need for high-quality, military-friendly realtors plus a reliable way to find them no matter where a military family was moving. WeVett Realty was created to fill that need,” he said. “We then quickly discovered that the biggest pain point for some of our clients has been navigating the VA Loan process. An opportunity arose recently that allowed us to build out a solution for that pain point, WeVett Home Loans. We can now provide VA Loan expertise to our clients which has helped bring further consistency to the military PCS process.”

He and his wife, Shannon, developed the businesses together in 2018 after he hung up his uniform. She runs WeVett Realty and he is at the helm for WeVett Home Loans. 

“We’re really proud of our early success. Within the first year of our home loans business, we were named one of the top 25 VA home loan originators out of 10,000 by United Wholesale Mortgage,” Kaufman said. “Frankly, that’s exciting on its own but doing so in a drastically shifting real estate market reassures us that we’re on the right track and fulfilling an important mission.”

Since launching WeVett, the duo has helped over 1,000 military families and continues to make giving back a large part of their operation. 

“In everything we do, we do it with the military community in mind. If we’re expanding our team, our priority is to hire a military spouse or veteran. If there’s a way for us to be involved locally with the local installations we do it,” he added. “This takes the shape of serving as honorary commander at McConnell Air Force Base, hosting veterans dinners in partnership with local restaurants and community leaders and sponsoring on-base events like the comedy show we did with Ashley Gutermuth.”

Kaufman also shared that they are giving scholarships to aspiring veteran entrepreneurs at Wichita State University.  

“Financial readiness and stability can have big impacts on anyone, but especially military families. Transition out of the military is stressful enough without a financial strain,” he said. “If we can influence positive outcomes through home ownership and long-term planning, we’ve accomplished something worthwhile.”

As for what he’d tell transitioning veterans trying to find their next mission, it was direct. 

Today it can be easy to disconnect entirely from the military once you’re out. In fact, it seems like that is what many of us try to do when leaving. If you begin to question whether you made the right choice or not, just remember that not everything can be perfect,” Kaufman shared. “What we can do is lean on each other. It certainly requires a bit of vulnerability but don’t be afraid to connect, especially with those who have been through what you’re enduring. There are plenty of conversations I wished I had which would have helped me along the way or served as an opportunity to tell someone how much they meant to me. You don’t have to go through these chapters alone.”

You can learn more about WeVett here.