超越自我小组第一次作业argument4

yk19840405UID: 2463374

Argument 4
.The following was posted on an Internet real estate discussion site.

"Of the two leading real estate firms in our town-Adams Realty and Fitch Realty-Adams 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."


The author of this argument claims that Adams Realty is superior to Fitch Realty for reasons that Adams could help their clients to sell their houses quickly and at good prices. To support this claim the author cites certain statistics about the number and working hours of the agents in both firms as well as empirical evidence involving his own experience to show that Adams sell houses than Fitch. At the other hand, the author gives the revenue and average sales prices to demonstrate that Adams sells home at a higher price. Close scrutiny of these evidences reveal that all of them lead little credible support for the author’s assertion.

First of all, the author wrongly assumes that Adams has more agents and they work more hours than agents in Fitch so that Adams sells houses quicker than Fitch. However, it is entirely possible that the agents in Fitch are all experienced while there are mostly green hands in Adams. In this case, more agents and working hours can never necessarily lead to high efficiency. Moreover, the author doesn’t cite the working hours of agents in Adams, and it is possible that the difference of total working hours in two firms is not very large. Thus, it is unconvinced to claim that Adams is superior base on this evidence.

To further support his claim the author cites his experience about two firms. He points out that it took Fitch Realty considerable longer to sell one of the author’s homes ten years ago than it took Adams to sell another last year. However, there may be other explanation for this disparity, such as changing economic conditions and developed selling mode during that ten-year period, or a different in the desirability of the two properties. Without excluding all other factors affecting the speed of a sale, it is unfair to quality of the two firms based on this anecdotal evidence.

Moreover, the author claims that Adams could sell houses at higher prices. To support this he points out that the average sales price of a home sold by Adams is greater than the average price of a home sold by Fitch. However, it is possible that the value of those houses Adams sold is higher inherently. For example, the clients of Adams concentrate in a downtown area of the city while Fitch in suburbia. Furthermore, the fact that Adams’ avenue last year is higher is could also be a result of area differences, not of the efficiency of the firm.

In conclusion, the author’s evidence lends little credible support to his claim. To better strengthen the claim that Adams is superior than Fitch, the author should give more convincible evidence that, for the same kind of houses, Adams is efficient to sell them quicker at higher prices.

yk19840405UID: 2463374

好像没人看哦