My Brother by James Agee

My brother, you ask? What does that have to do with anything, especially in regards to real estate? Well, in terms of me, quite a lot. Let me explain, but first, I want to share who my brother was. I always find it amazing how, when someone dies, many people automatically portray the deceased as an angel, contrary to the facts of their life. At their funeral, they say things like, "So-and-so was so great, never harmed a fly," yada yada yada. Meanwhile, they may have cheated on their spouse, been a thief, a liar, or had a severely flawed character. My older brother was someone I admired and aspired to be like at many times in my life, but he had some faults, big ones and was flawed like the rest of us. I am fully aware of his strengths and weaknesses, and I will share them with you as I explain how he is the reason I ended up in real estate.

David Chastian Agee was my older brother, part of a family of six blood siblings, which eventually grew to nine siblings, but that’s a different story for another day. The first story about my brother dates back to when I was two years old (he was twelve years my senior). My brother took my airplane, and according to my parents, I said, “David, will you please give me back my airplane?” but it came out as, “David, will you please give me back my pirate plane?” My first words were a sentence. A little late to the game, but pretty good when I played.

At that time, there were five of us living in my grandma’s basement in New York. My brother, like many of us Agees, was quite rebellious. Some of my earliest memories include him getting smacked around or spanked while my dad was saying a prayer or something. As a small boy, I really looked up to my brother. If he liked battleships and aircraft carriers, then so did I.  If he liked Uzis and Berettas, then so did I.  If he wrote a comic book, then so did I.

During this time in my life, my father was still living with us and had a hot temper and a heavy hand. My brother would rush to protect me, and if he saw what he felt was injustice or hypocrisy, he would jump into action to defend me and others. My brother very much lived up to his name in fighting giants. He was not a very big guy; he was wide and muscular at times, but he was quite short. My brother was super creative. He made me F-14 Tomcats out of bristle blocks, tanks out of Legos, and out of cardboard boxes, he made me an aircraft carrier, which our mother threw away for being an object of war. If I had a problem with someone much bigger, I knew my brother would come to my rescue. But on the flip side, he was fiercely competitive with me and would beat me up as a small boy. Remember, he was twelve years older than me. When I was around 8 or so we had an argument about who was stronger, and he punched me in the face. I said, “Look, I did not cry.” He replied, “You might be tougher, but not stronger; and (correction) maybe just tough.” He knocked out four of my teeth another time by punching me down the stairs. He was scary to me when he lost his temper.

As we got older, he told me how he was bullied a lot growing up and wanted to make me tough so I wouldn’t be. He had me bench-pressing 55 pounds when I was in first grade. He was a bodybuilder for a while and a personal trainer who trained some Olympic champions.  He had so much success at almost everything he put his hand to.  He started a landscaping company and was successful at it. David was all about a good deal and had no problem at times ensuring he had the bigger slice of the pie, more than anyone else. He liked free labor, like when he employed my sisters at his landscaping company and then would do things like buy them lunch but deduct the meals from their paychecks.

At 19, he became the youngest person licensed to sell insurance with John Hancock in the state of New York at that time. Sadly, chasing girls and drinking too much beer occupied a lot of his time. I did not get to spend as much time with him as I would have liked when we were younger, and I think he regretted that as we got older. When I moved to New Mexico, David would still play computer games like Age of Empires over the internet with me. But as we got older, we drifted somewhat out of touch. My brother eventually became an attorney. I had actually wanted to be one myself but lost all interest once I found out he was becoming one; I did not want to live in his shadow.

During this time, David was an attorney, and I feel he, in a way, lost himself. He still fought giants like banks, but his compassion and concern for others seemed to have dried up. Don’t get me wrong; David’s whole life revolved around himself first, then his family and friends, but screw the rest of the world. It was always about getting the best deal for David, then the best deal for family or friends, but in that order—always a 60-40 split.

When I went through my first divorce, I came down to Florida, where he was living along with one of our sisters. He seemed to want to make up for the time lost as kids. Sadly, I was the one who wanted to drink beer and chase women. But it was during this time that I got my brother to question his worldview. At that time, I had turned away from my faith—not that I stopped believing in God, but I was not following Him and doubted that I was His child. We had an argument about the existence of God. He was talking about all this evolution nonsense, while I discussed how complex cells are, even in their most basic state. What really got him thinking was how far archaeology goes back—roughly 6,500 to 7,500 years of civilization and building, while humans have been on the planet for at least a million years, depending on the source. I said, “So for a million years, humans were just sitting around scratching themselves, and then in the last 10,000 years, they decided to start building things? Or show me a half-evolved creature? The missing link is missing because it does not exist. Animals adapt to their environment, but they do not change species. In fact, when you breed two different species, the offspring cannot even reproduce, like a mule. The idea that things mutated and then grew another leg or wing is flawed; mutations are losses of information, not gains.”

David would later tell me that this conversation got him thinking about God and what he believed, and that it was the only argument I ever won against him. I was okay with that because, to me, it was the only one that mattered. He did not normally like to tell people this, as he was always worried my ego would get too big.

I ended up moving back to New York and then to New Mexico. Years later, David almost died from C. diff. He told me that he started to believe in God. I was thrilled; I had my brother back, and it felt like it was going to be like it was when we were younger. We started talking again. David was always ahead of his time; he was into paintball before it became popular and had his own business in that. He was also into brewing his own beer before microbreweries became a thing.

At the time, I was working a corporate job—a good job—but he said, “James, why don’t you come and move out to Florida and try real estate and farming? See if you like either or both.” He told me he thought I would be a good REALTOR. Real estate did not interest me; I thought I wanted to get away from sales since I had been in sales my whole life. But farming—that was an idea I liked. Being from New York, I had this notion that farming was good, honest work, and that working with my hands would be a wonderful experience.

So when I got to Florida, his farming and real estate company were more ideas in his head than fully operational businesses. Well, they were operational but had no business yet—no clients. David made it seem they were further along than they actually were, but that’s my brother. He was someone with a vision for possibilities and the future. I was disappointed but got to work. I started studying for my real estate license and began farming. The farming venture at the time involved raising chickens, like Joel Salatin. However, I quickly learned that farming was not for me. I was not getting paid; we had to sell the chickens first, and since we had just received them, it would be a while before any money came in.  I started focusing on studying for my real estate exam. After butchering chickens in the pouring rain and getting sick, I decided that farming was not my cup of tea—or my cup of espresso, either. I needed to start making some money since I was living off my savings. I got my real estate license, and thus began my cold calling. In retrospect, it was kind of stupid since we were at the end of all the work minus selling them, but I did not want to work on the farm, and it felt like free labor since sometimes we were just improving David’s house or farm. Years later, through a local chef in Bradenton whom David had met once, I became pretty good friends with him and reintroduced David. David was able to sell his natural free-range chickens to the Chef.

My wife brought me my first deal; it was a friend of hers from work—the easiest buyer deal I think I ever had. We looked at houses for a day, wrote our first contract, and it was accepted. I kind of felt like a fish out of water. I am not sure if David was unaware of how little real estate school teaches you about the actual job you are doing, aside from some of the law, or if this was one of his tough love lessons: sink or swim. Because in the day-to-day operations, I had no idea what to do. I felt like my cousin Vinnie at his first trial. But I learned.  At that time, I did not realize how valuable having a brother as an attorney truly was and how much I learned about contracts and the law from him. After a while, I was outperforming other brokers and agents and wiping the floor with them in negotiations. I would love to say this is the end of the story and that everything was roses and sunshine. However, I felt like my brother had not changed; he was still looking out for himself and not really following God. I cold-called all the leads, did all the work, and he wanted 25% to 50% of my commissions. There were a lot of other options for brokerages, and they had much better setups. Sometimes he would not charge me that split, but I  think he felt like he was doing me a favor. I did not see it that way.

Trouble arose between us when we tried to do a flip together, and he had to handle a few probate cases to do so and wanted more money for that. We got into a stupid fight and sadly did not talk for a long time. This, however, was what made me step out and open my own brokerage. It was the only way I could control how I was going to get paid. David was sick again; it was found that he had myasthenia gravis, and he thought he might die again. He was my brother, and I loved him, but he probably would never reach out to me (he was even more stubborn than I am). I sent him a text, but there was no response. I was upset.

Then, while I was lying in bed, he responded. We started talking, and I honestly cannot remember if either of us apologized; it did not matter—we were speaking again. We began hanging out, attending each other’s events, playing video games, going shooting, and going to dinner. At this point, we did not want to mix business; at least I know I didn’t—I did not want to lose my brother again. David started to ask me about property values; I guess he was having trouble with an appraiser he had been using for years who was suddenly undervaluing things. He was also having issues with an agent that was clueless on a short sale he was negotiating. It turned out the appraiser was severely undervaluing the properties, and I was able to get that short sale done just like in the past.

We started to work together, which was good because we really made one hell of a team. Life was great, but the greatest thing for me was seeing my brother change; his faith was growing, his concern for others was increasing, and he was alive. In a bittersweet ending, my brother died in a car crash right before the Fourth of July. Why would I say "sweet" at all? Well, he was fighting his sickness, which sometimes made him unable to control parts of his body or speech, and prevented him from doing things he once could. This absolutely drove him crazy; he hated watching his body slowly fail him. I have faith that my brother is with the Lord. My career is based on my brother’s vision, so he has everything to do with real estate as it involves me and thank God for that!