Extract

Robin Paul Malloy INTRODUCTION This chapter is offered as an invitation to a conversation about the way in which we think, or might think, about real estate transactions. It is preliminary and suggestive in nature, and it invites readers to think about an entrepreneurial theory of real estate transactions. Many of the ideas expressed herein expand on work begun in two of my earlier books: Law and Market Economy: Reinterpreting the Values of Law and Economics;1 and Law in a Market Context: An Introduction to Market Concepts in Legal Reasoning.2 In each of these books I develop the idea of law and market economy, or what might otherwise be identified as law and market exchange theory. This approach is one based on the market as a dynamic process of exchange and involves examining the way in which exchange is initiated, the terms of trade, the objects of exchange and a variety of socio-legal factors that govern human interaction in a market society. It is an approach grounded in an understanding of the market as a place of meaning and value transformation rather than one of a simple utilitarian economic calculus, and it assumes that the market is a means to a mission driven end rather than an end in itself. In this chapter I apply this approach to an initial consideration of real estate transactions to suggest that such transactions are prototypical examples of entrepreneurship because they focus on the capture and creation of value through exchange. At the...