Argument Writing 5

The following appeared in a letter from a homeowner to a friend.
“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 of the argument seems to have made a number of unwarranted assumptions to reach to the conclusion that Adams Realty is the better option of the two for selling a house faster and at a better price. These unwarranted assumptions, if proved otherwise, will seriously undermine the authors claim.

Firstly, the argument assumes higher revenue of a firm resulting in higher price to the customers. Might be, the houses Adams sold were costly to start with. At times, companies have turned more profitable with very low revenues. And, companies with revenues in billions of dollars have at times turned unprofitable; profit is affected by the investments involved as well.

Another assumption the argument makes is that number of agents have an impact on the pace and the price of a house. There might not just always be true. The 25 real estate agents that Fitch has might be way more efficient then those 40 agents of Adams; quality at times outweights quantity.

Also, author tries to compare the speed with which the two firms sell houses by taking personal experience into account. But, experience of a single person is not enough to generalize. And, the comarision also is not fair for many things must must have changed in a decade. The situation that was there ten years ago and a year ago need to be taken into account as well. The experiences of other customers of the firms could be a great help here.

Thus, the number of unstated assumptions seriously weaken the validity of the claim. Unless the stated assumptions are addreneed properly, the conlcusion of Adams Realty being the better option for selling a house will remain logically unsound.

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