“Of the two leading real estate firms in our town—Adams Realty and Fitch Realty—Adams Realty is clearly superior. Adams has 40 real estate agents; in contrast, Fitch has 25, many of whom work only part-time. Moreover, Adams' revenue last year was twice as high as that of Fitch and included home sales that averaged $168,000, compared to Fitch's $144,000. Homes listed with Adams sell faster as well: ten years ago I listed my home with Fitch, and it took more than four months to sell; last year, when I sold another home, I listed it with Adams, and it took only one month. Thus, if you want to sell your home quickly and at a good price, you should use Adams Realty."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

The author claims that Adams Realty is a better real estate firm than Fitch Realty based on three factors, namely higher revenue, larger number of real estate agents and time taken for the house to sell. However, there are a number of unstated assumptions which if examined closely may disprove the author’s claim.

The first assumption is that Adams Realty is better because it has forty real estate agents, as opposed to Fitch which has only twenty five, many of who work part time. The author’s belief is that having a larger number of employees implies a better service. However, it may be the case that the agents at Fitch Realty are more skilled and outperform the agents at Adams Realty. In other words, it might be that the per-person output of Fitch Realty exceeds that of Adams Realty. To illustrate this principle, one can form a tentative estimate of per-person output by dividing the revenue by the number of agents. Roughly speaking, the average Adams agent generated $4200 whereas the average Fitch agent generated $5760. This suggests that a client might benefit more from going to a Fitch agent than an Adams agent, challenging the author’s assumption first assumption.

The author's second point in favour of Adams Realty is that it generated larger revenue. This assumption is that the larger the revenue, the more the customer benefits. However, it may be that Adams Realty catered to a much larger number of clients than Fitch, thereby decreasing the per-client revenue. In other words, an average seller might earn less by going to an Adams’ agent. A better estimate of a client’s income would be obtained on computing the average revenue by dividing the total revenue by number of customers serviced.

The third flaw in the author’s argument is the problem of generalisation. Although it is true that the author’s house sold faster on Adams as opposed to Fitch, it might have been that in most cases, Fitch houses sell faster. It would be highly erroneous to conclude about the speed of sale based on a single customer’s experience.

Furthermore, there is a myriad of factors which go into deciding the speed with which a house is sold. It may be that the second house was sold at a lower profit-for-value than the first. Perhaps it was located in a prime locality where houses were hard to find and the demand was high. It may also be that the first house was in poor condition or in a disagreeable locality, due to which it took a long time to sell. More importantly, real estate circumstances may change rapidly within ten years, and once forgotten land may be become highly sought after.

Thus, multiple factors go into judging the performance of a real estate company, many of which the author has overlooked. A more careful analysis might very well reveal Fitch Realty as a better agency.