Doing the Right Thing is designed to help readers recognize and resolve the different ethical problems and issues they will encounter in daily practice as real estate professionals. As they work through the various real-life case studies and provocative discussion questions, they will become aware of their personal values and principles; formulate a personal code of ethics; become more aware of laws and regulations; and develop and implement a rational model for ethical decision-making.
Preface The perception of real estate practitioners as unethical is so commonplace that the term real estate ethics is considered an oxymoron by members of the public and often by the profession itself! Negative characterizations appear everywhere in the popular media; witness, for example, the portrayal of real estate agents in such films as Glengarry Glen Ross, Pacific Heights, and Wall Street. Real estate practitioners are no more or less ethical than the average American. However, we often have a difficult time doing the right thing for a few reasons: first, confusing, complex, and sometimes contradictory laws, rules, and codes of conduct govern real estate practitioners; and second, practitioners lack decision-making experience confronting ethical dilemmas. This book was designed to help real estate practitioners face and resolve these problems. The objectives of this guide are fourfold: to help real estate practitioners (1) become aware of personal values and principles; (2) formulate a personal code of ethics; (3) become aware of laws and regulations (or the lack thereof) that may govern responses to ethical dilemmas; and (4) develop and implement a rational model for ethical decision making. The text is written in workbook format so that readers can respond to the exercises individually or as part of a class exercise. To keep the discussion grounded in reality, case studies from real estate trade magazines and journals, as well as from daily newspapers, appear in the chapters. The first half of the book, Chapters 1-6, provides background to the problems that confront real estate professionals and insight into the development of values, principles, and ethics. These chapters also introduce a philosophical and psychological overview of moral development so that readers can better understand their own methods for resolving ethical dilemmas. Models for ethical decision making are provided to enable readers to employ a variety of strategies for dealing with ethical problems in real estate. Finally, readers are given some guidance on professional and legal standards governing the real estate business. The second half of the book, Chapters 7-12, is a handbook and a work-book. These chapters examine specific ethical issues, such as agency, civil rights, stigmatized properties, environmental hazards, and relationships with colleagues, employers, and the community. Each chapter ends with questions ("How Would You Respond?") and possible responses dealing with dilemmas commonly confronted by real estate practitioners. Lastly, a list of additional resources is provided for readers who wish to explore ethical issues not only in real estate, but in business generally and at home. Today's real estate practitioners are more likely to encounter difficult ethical issues than ever before. Like professionals everywhere, real estate agents can choose to engage in responsible and morally desirable behavior, help people in need, and do the right thing. This book points us in that direction. Acknowledgments I was fortunate to be surrounded by supportive family, colleagues, friends, and mentors during the writing of this book. Without my husband's encouragement and willingness to take on more than his share of family responsibility, I would never have been able to complete my work on time. Our daughter, Jennifer, should be commended for her patience while I spent hours at the word processor. I promise to make it up to her. I also wish to acknowledge the influence of my sister and mother, my friends, and my graduate professors in the shaping of this work. I am particularly grateful to the following real estate educators, who reviewed the original manuscript and offered suggestions as to how it might be improved: Richard J. Clemmer, Hugh Ryall, Leslie Campbell, Barry Caudill, Charles E. Krackeler, and John Reilly. My colleagues Richard Linkemer, Maryann Bassett, and Cindy Chandler, my students, and numerous state regulators have contributed their ideas to this new edition. I also wish to thank colleagues who provided me with the news clippings referred to in the new case studies. I became interested in this project for a number of reasons. When people discover that I teach basic licensing law and principles to real estate practitioners, they often relate stories of real or perceived poor ethical conduct by practitioners with whom they have come in contact. As an educator, I became interested in whether ethical reasoning skills could be taught in a classroom to adults whose reasoning skills and moral conduct have already been shaped by earlier influences. My graduate work indicates that ethics education can make a difference in the way we think and act. Perhaps more significantly, I am a child of Holocaust survivors, and as such, I have always been disturbed by the fact that the horrors of Auschwitz and Nazi Germany were perpetrated by educated people: architects and engineers built the crematoria; medical doctors performed inhumane experiments on victims; and lawyers made it legal. The many moral failures witnessed in the Holocaust can ultimately be attributed to a system that valued many things over the development of character and conscience. All of the skills we acquire in the classroom and at work are meaningless unless we are taught the value of human life: without ethical reasoning skills, we are not fully human.
Deborah Long
