OUT OF THE WOODWORK [AS THEY SAY]

While I cannot fully articulate at this moment all of the reasons that we started this blog, something quite interesting [no, I would dare say "revealing"] has taken place over the past two weeks or so. It has helped me to understand the power & energy / the breath & reach of the blogosphere.

Three separate and very different groups have reached out to make contact, to compare notes and stories and even concerns relations to their dealings with Ariel [Ari] Nessel of San Francisco. Their business dealings were all formatted quite differently with Ari, they were not all in Cleveland but each expressed concern over HONOR, ETHICS and business dealings that 'play in the grey'.

When one person on a blog gets such diverse responses on a hard-to-find blog, I must wonder about a few things:

• How many others are out there with similar stories?
• Does repetitive 'playing in the grey' lead [morally or legally] to a pattern of abuse that can & should be challenged at law?
  

Please let me hear from you on these questions. Post your comments here [with a method for me to contact you] or comment directly to me via e-mail. I do hope to be able to discuss these things with you in great detail.

Many thanks.

Mitch Greenstein

Job, not Job

A friend called on Sunday evening. The conversation turned to this blog and Ari Nessel and others who are discussed and alluded to from time to time. He suggested to me that I need to send a copy of the Book of Job from the Old Testament to each and every person involved.

An interesting thought indeed, but I'm not really sure that they would see this as Evil vs. God [good]. As he said, and few understand: "the need of goodness to stand even alone against evil", and "I have never focused on the question as to whether business ethics was a sub set of general ethics"... obviously it shouldn't.

Book of Job (איוב)

Peace Out.
Mitch


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job

Part II - Ethics 102

Another day - another question. By the way, my thanks to those who have contacted me off line to discuss this and I look for / hope for a lot more communication and thoughts in this regard.

In any event, let's go on to Part 2 of the Ethical considerations, that is the role of, the moral duty of and humanity of the broker [or realtor or real estate sales executive or whatever is the politically correct term]. We are not now discussing the legal aspects of that duty but duty tied to morality and good business and honor and principle.

Let's suppose you had a client. The client had not just one, but a few properties to be sold. You clearly should represent him to the best of your ability. How far should that take you? Do you just intervene on thier behalf? Do you take those on the other side of the table on 'wild goose chases' for the benefit of your client? Do you tell them that you believe "X" when in fact you believe "Y"? What if you actually know "X" to be false and misleading and that "Y" is really the case? How large a fee, a payment would you need to get in order to take such actions?

As the party who thinks that they have been treated wrongly, do you just lick your wounds and move on? Sue the other party? Sue the broker? What about the regulators? And how might you responses change if you know that you will end up doing business with these people at some time in the future? When does ethics fall victim to 'good business sense' or is the best of 'good business sense' simply being guided 100% of the time by high ethics?

As I said earlier, these are questions in theory thus far. No accusations at this point; no law suits; no tossing down the gauntlet - YET!

Comment to me here or directly via e-mail at Mitch.Greenstein@GMail.com

Peace Out
Mitch

Ethics 101

Allow me to pose to you, the reader, a simple question of ethics and morals. I would truly appreciate your comments and thoughts.

Suppose you own a property - an apartment community, with lots of families and seniors and young children reside. A purchaser of the property discovers that the property has both lead-based paint and asbestos. For reasons that are unimportant at this juncture [I hope to develop that part of this Blog at a later time], you end up selling your property to someone else. For whatever reason, you end up not disclosing the asbestos and lead-based paint; maybe they asked and your failed to disclose or maybe they just were not savvy enough to ask the base line questions that a purchaser [and certainly his lender] should.

Do you have a moral / ethical duty to disclose? Let's forget the issues of legal obligations at this time. If you disclose, you might not get the money you had hoped for / expected. If you simply shut your mouth and cash comes your way.

So tell me please, what should you do and what would you do? Yes, they are slightly different questions but both are of import. And while we are at it, what about those who work with / for the Seller - a different duty?

Thanks!
Mitch

{Coming on Sunday, Part II - Ethics 102}