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

The author's argument that Adams Realty is a better option if the author's friend wants to sell his home quickly and at a good price, may seem logical at the first glance. The argument may be correct if its premises hold to be true. However, the author has based his argument on certain assumptions for which he has not provided any supporting evidence.

The author argues that Adams Realty is superior than Fitch Realty in the real estate buisness. To support his argument, he has pointed out that Adams has more agents than Fitch,many of Fitch's agents work part-time, Adams's last year's revenue was more than Fitch's. However the author's strongest point to support his argument is that Fitch took 4 months to sell his home 10 years ago, while last year Adams sold his home in 1 month. In stating so, the author has missed some important point. The author took Fitch's services 10 years ago, at that time the real estate market might not be as good as the current time. The author has not mentioned, if both of his homes were similar with respect to laocation, fascilities furnishings etc. The home given to Fitch for selling may have been located in an inconvenient place or may not have been in good condition. Such factors might have made it difficult for Fitch to find a buyer. One or both of these disadvantages may not have been present with the current house.

The author has pointed out that Adams is superior to Fitch as they have better revenues than Fitch. Here, the author hasn't mentioned the size of buisnesses owned by Fitch and Admas Realty. Adams Realty maybe an overall bigger organisation than Fitch. They may have branches in many cities while Fitch's buisness might be localised. Thus the differences in overall revenues do not necessarily mean that Fitch is not doping as well as Adams. Even with smaller revenue Fitch's percentage of profit may be more depending upon the size of their holdings. The difference $24,000 in home sales is also not very high,and the profit percentage will again depend highly on buisness sizes. The author says that homes registered with Adams sell faster than Fitch. Here again, he has failed to mention the localities of such homes.Adams might only be registering homes in good conditions and locations, hence producing faster sales than Fitch. He has not cited any statsitical findings to support his conclusion, his statement seems to be based only upon the fact that Fitch took four months 10 years ago to sell his home as compared to Adams's one month period recently.

Lastly, the author has pointed out that Adams has 40 agents while Fitch has only 25, many of whom are part-timers. The author hasn't said anything regarding the quality, working capability and payment of such agents. Fitch may have hired lesser agents and they may be part timers,but Fitch might be paying them better, so they will be doing better jobs of selling homes. If the author were to provide some fact which could prove that Fitch's agents are not as competent as Adams or agents employed by Fitch are dissatisfied with their job contracts, it would lend some credibility to his argument. However, Fitch's policy of emplying less agents and part-timers maybe ideally suited to their buisness size.

Summing up,the author may be correct in saying that Adams Realty maybe a better option for selling a home quickly and at a good price. However, if the assumptions on which his argument is based, were to be unwarranted, his argument will certainly lose its credibility.