Is there anyone who doesn't want to dine in an exclusive restaurant, shop at an exclusive boutique or vacation at an exclusive resort? Just the sound of the word "exclusive" generates images of rubbing shoulders with celebrities, wearing designer clothes, and feelings of excitement. But if you are selling your home, and you agree to list your home on an "exclusive-to- one-company" agreement, you may be excluding the most important thing a home seller needs - buyers.

When you sign a listing agreement with an agent or brokerage firm, it is always exclusive. Called an "exclusive-right-to-sell" agreement, this document empowers the agent to put heart and soul into the marketing of your home. One of the first things the agent/brokerage firm does, is put the home into the MLS system, inviting all agents from all companies, including competitors, to participate in selling your home. The result is that your home has the best chance of selling quickly and at a higher price because of healthy competition and broad exposure.

But another type of exclusive agreement is starting to gain in popularity, fed by the tight markets across the country in which there are more buyers for homes than homes on the market. Knowing the home may have a quick turnaround, sellers are tempted to reduce commissions, knowing that agents are hungry for listings. In order to cut costs, they might offer the listing to the agent who is willing to reduce her/his commission. What they fail to realize is that they will get exactly what they pay for. They don't ask themselves what the real goal is, a smooth, quick sale or saving costs. If they turned the question around and asked themselves, "Would you work harder for someone who has just cut your salary?" they might feel differently.

Realtors put in this position have few options, and only one of them worth pursuing. The first is to say no thanks to the listing. The second is to accept and try to do a good job anyway, without having as large a budget or incentive to incur costs in marketing the home ( not to mention the nagging feeling that the seller may attempt to reduce the commission further or prove difficult to work with on other levels) The third, and most clearly profitable, is to accept - in exchange for an exclusive-to-one-company listing. This document enables the listing agent and company to retain all the commission offered without opening the listing to other competitors. Sellers and agents are both willing to chance that the company, with limited agents and buyer pool, will affect a quick sale.

When you look at the numbers, it is easy to see why many companies are beginning to actively chase exclusive to one company listings, even to the point of giving signing bonuses to their salespeople to make up for lost commissions. With more buyers than sellers, the numbers are cost effective - as long as brokers can come up with buyers themselves, and the seller is not in a hurry to sell the home. The average commission is 6%, half of which is shared with the buyer's agent, usually represented by another company. If the commission is cut, the agent can either earn 2 1/2 percent or renegotiate the deal and earn 5%. That's a no-brainer.There are companies that are reported to be bonusing salespeople and encouraging sellers not to share their listings with their competitors.

"When Realtors offer to reduce their commission in exchange for a reduced commission listing, it sounds highly seductive," says Judy Reeves, president of Burgdorff ERA. "Seductive, yes, but productive, no. Not if the home sellers want the best price and the best terms for their home. Each sellers property needs to be exposed to as many buyers as possible."

Reeves points out that if only two of the hundreds of competing Realtors who showed this home on the Multiple Listing Service simultaneously brought in buyers, it would create a competitive bidding situation, an opportunity for the sellers to command a higher price and better terms which can be of significant value when it comes time to move. Reeves, who has risen from sales associate to become the only female president of a metropolitan New York billion-dollar real estate firm, has seen too many homeowners enticed by an exclusive listing more in the broker's interest than in theirs. "The seller, tempted by the reduction of the commission which can represent hundreds or thousands of dollars, fails to realize that an exclusive listing closes the door on hundreds or thousands of other agents throughout the market who may already have a buyer for the home, " she warns.

Robert Ferguson, former president of the New Jersey Association of Realtors, said that the multiple listing system is the greatest marketing tool for the sale of residential real estate. "It's proven," he says, "that homes sell faster when they are multiple listed." Since exclusive listings circumvent the MLS, they limit prospective buyers, the one thing sellers need to sell their homes quickly.

According to Reeves, exclusive-to-one-company listings circumvent the multiple listing system, and in so doing, they limit prospective buyers. The MLS maximizes exposure of a home, creates urgency, and assures immediate impact in a broad market. "If a listing is allowed to stay in house (with one company) for several weeks, a seller can never be certain that they are getting the highest and best offer. You can only know that when all educated buyers are exposed to the home at the same time."

Local real estate boards, with their strict ethical and professional standards, require that every homeowner who agrees to an exclusive listing to sign a special form called a Waiver of Broker Cooperation. In signing it, the sellers affirm that even though the advantages of multiple listing have been explained to them, they are still opting to sign an exclusive-to-one-company agreement. Burgdorff salespeople, says Reeves, are mindful of the advantages of multiple listing and urge sellers to spurn the signing of the waiver. "The bottom line is that there is absolutely no advantage for the seller, because the self-interest of the broker, collecting both sides of the commission, puts a cloud on the issue of which offer is best for the seller."

Homeowners need to determine their goals at the outset. Do they want to reduce costs or sell the home quickly? In the final analysis, costs are not reduced, according to Reeves, because the loss of a possible better offer and the competitiveness of more than one offer can not be underestimated or calculated.