The beginning of a new year—and a double-digit one at that—usually encourages us to concentrate on "new" in many areas of our lives and careers. In real estate, although a lot is new and this trend will continue, it's not what's new that will dictate success in 2010:

• The dynamics of real estate transactions don't change although the players and goals may.

• The strategies of real estate marketing don't change although the language and trends may.

• The realities of real estate ownership don't change although the challenges and rewards do.

Over the following weeks and months, this column will continue its exploration of Decisions and Communities while reviewing and revealing the tenets of real estate and the evolving opportunities. As a Futurist and Strategist, these perspectives are key to my professional offerings and have become ingrained in my thinking. Here, we'll also continue to discuss connections and interconnections of business and consumerism since both create communities and impact decisions.

With our heads still spinning from all that has happened and not happened over the last two years, let's start by focussing on what matters in successful transactions, communication and investment—details. This causal relationship is not exclusive to real estate, but since that's the context for this column, we'll find our examples here.

While writing my current business communication book, What's Your Point?, I started a series of observations on client disservice that I call "Mediocrity Rules." Each item in my original list could be considered a rule for providing service less than professionally and with lack of understanding or respect for the client involved.

What continues to fascinate me is that the list, first of 5, then 10, then 20, kept growing as I observed and questioned professionals in many industries. Here are a few "Mediocrity Rules" for real estate which you can add to. In fact, send in your versions of professionalism that hits the rim not the target even though the professional is unaware of their poor aim.

• Non-Verbal Communication: The professional trades person who is very proud of his professional skill, even patronizing to the property-owner employer, but who never arrives on time, leaves a messy workplace (the employer's home) and consistently does not deliver on commitments. When the real estate owner told the professional that he was being disrespectful, the professional stressed that since there was no yelling or swearing, there was no disrespect.

• Ethical ConsistencyThe municipal snow plow operator who repeatedly drove the massive front-end loader, belching diesel fumes, through residential streets to plough "phantom" snow—snow that had melted to a state that residents with snow shovels had little to do. This occurred in a municipality which is hiking property taxes and levying user fees to pay off massive municipal over-spending.

• Professional Standards The reportedly "pro-green" residential contractor who bought a newly-renovated vacant house, then gutted that house sending all the new light fixtures, kitchen cupboards and other brand-new, never-used material to the dumpster instead of recycling to the very active local Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

• True Diligence: The real estate professional who attempted to duplicate the personal touch by using stamped, individually-addressed mass-mailing envelopes. which begged to be opened, but overlooked the importance of a direct marketing contingency plan for addresses that did not meet the standard address pattern of the selected postal code area. For instance, the homeowner who brought this to my attention was asking, "How could a broker, identified as one of the top sales agents, write "Actively working in the "A" Street Name area" when the street name was made incorrect by adding "A" in from of it. In addition the envelope and flyer address were similar but different, so it was not clear what the owner's address was. All this was a big deal to the receiving homeowner.

• Deferred Responsibility The federal government decision to temporarily shut down—called proroguing the second for this Prime Minister to avoid discussing "sticky" issues—has been a popular nomination for inclusion in our MR series. Voters agreed that since professionalism is widely believed to include taking responsibility for your actions and inaction this is mediocrity on a national scale. Is it possible the two "prorogies" are Canada's version of "Let them eat cake"?

• Disservice Anyone?Received some disservice yourself lately? Share your example of room for improvement. No names and no condemnations necessary since the scary thing about most of the Mediocrity Rules is that they transcend location, something real estate rarely if ever does.

The point in acknowledging the mediocrity instead of just saying "That's life" is that you, the client, become aware of how your standards are lowered by accepting less. Settling for less while following others on the quest for "more," is what drove us into debt as individuals and governments.

If this is a new year, it's time to expect better service, to demand consistent quality and to search out lasting value in every detail related to your home. Apply that criteria to buying, selling and enjoying real estate and you'll understand why it's not just "new" that matters in decisions and communities.