My Favorite Agent!

I have a few agents. I really do. As an author I have an agent - as a dog trainer I have another agent - I have two or three different managers who vie all the time for my time, my dog's time, my kids' time, and to be honest - I love it. I wouldn't have it any other way, because if I had it another way I wouldn't have any time to work. I'd be looking for places to go - book signings - deals, contracts, shows and engagements on my own. I would like it if THEY were busier than what they are, but that will come in time. Oh, but I have another agent - one I don't pay. I don't use him for much either, unless I have a desire to go look at $1,000,000+ houses so I can pretend and fantasize. He's my realtor, my sales agent! Jeff York of Keller Williams, Oklahoma City, and if you need one you can borrow mine, I don't mind - I let him out of the cage to prowl around every once in a while. A man has to be able to stretch his legs, right?

I met Jeff in the most unusual way - he was laying on a couch of a house he was showing. The owners left him there to fend for himself, and they trusted him to watch not only the house, but the pools, the land, the gates - everything. He even had his fingerprints all over the SubZero frig, the granite bar, the remotes for the 70" plasma and there he was - laying on the couch, eating hummus and watching a golf game. The fact that he literally lived across the street from his clients probably helped that he was trusted enough to man the place.

With his shoes off, and a waving hand from the 2nd living room, he ALLOWED us to enter. It was an open house Sunday. The house was just under $580,000 and around 6,000 sq. feet. In Oklahoma that's not a steal - it's an overpriced house, but he was willing and able to explain to me that the house came not only with land, an in ground pool, barbecue deck, and slate roof, it had alarms, two staircases, matching his and her full baths, and a 600 square foot closet on her side. All this information he gave to me while taking in the golf game, munching on crackers and spreading the hummus with a jalapeno pepper. (Don't bother getting up - I'll just look around.) The fact is, I don't think he had any intention of selling the house. If he did he wouldn't be able to get away from his wife when the neighbors were out of town! (She's wonderful, I'm kidding.)

So, Jeff has been my perfect realtor. We call him "Uncle Jeff". He takes us to mansions, through woods and dales to see garden-lined cottages far too far from town, but just perfect for pretending and for fact gathering for that next chapter of my fiction-based book "Wuthering Heights II", which of course will be written around a central character, a man with a flaw, an evil man with a sense of nobility, a mind full of contempt, but a woman's soul can crack his stoned heart and send him into fits of rage - or to the refrigerator to get another beer. I'm not sure which direction the sequel should go - anyway, the garden-lined cottages play a key role, and to get there you have to have an agent willing to take you when he/she knows you aren't going to buy anything - that's Jeff. Great man - he's waiting on me to strike it rich, then he knows I'll call him with a real offer...maybe I'll buy two!