Americans love to do things their way. They drive on the right hand side of the road and call the fruit substance you spread on toast ‘jelly’ when it is clearly jam.

While there are certainly some debatable cultural differences between Australia and the United States, one thing Aussies can take a leaf out of the USA’s book about is the way they sell property.

Australian real estate agents love to keep the sales process as close to their chest as possible. They put a property on the market and get themselves the coveted listing, liaise with both the vendor and potential buyers, make the sale and then go home with commission.

The United States, however, uses a far more streamline method known as multiple listing services (MLS). First introduced more than 100 years ago, MLS systems have become one of the most effective ways to sell a property in the USA.

An MLS is a private database used by real estate agents showcasing a wide array of properties, allowing agents to share their listings and giving them a far wider reach of properties to buy or sell.

The use of MLS benefits all parties: sellers can expose their property to far more potential buyers they would otherwise never be able to reach, buyers can instantly search for listings that match their exact criteria and access all necessary property documents, and agents can increase their listings whilst being of more assistance to their clients.

The Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO) estimates there are about 2 million real estate agents in the United States, meaning the competition is more intense than ever.

The Canadian property market also operates under MLS, boasting over 98,000 REALTOR members of the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA).

With over 90 per cent of home buyers using the internet as their primary research source, more and more agents are giving themselves a leg-up to assist their clients by utilising MLS.

While agents in North America and many other countries around the world have the option of MLS at their disposal, the same can’t be said for agents in Australia – simply because there hasn’t been a platform that caters for it.

Home buyers and sellers in Australia have instead relied on vertical interaction between agents and nationwide property portals, with horizontal sharing between agents using MLS being basically non-existent. Until now.

The introduction of Twillis – the first online portal selling residential, commercial and project property with a local, national and global reach – will break the boundaries of how agents in Australia help their clients buy and sell real estate.

The common practice has been for vendors to rely on one real estate agent to get the job done and provide them with the best possible deal. Twillis, however, connects the master agent with thousands of property agents – locally and globally – while still maintaining power and control for the vendor.

For the majority of MLS’ around the globe, one of the limitations and pitfalls is that they restrict membership and access to licensed real estate agents only. In other words, the real estate agent will be accessing the benefits on the seller’s behalf.

But as everyone knows, selling a property is an emotional and stressful event. The competitive nature of the real estate market means all three parties – sellers, buyers and agents – are after the best possible result.

Twillis can make the sales process a whole lot smoother and more effective, providing the vendor with higher levels of exposure, achieving a maximum selling price and reducing the time on market.

But not only providing benefits to Australian buyers and sellers, Twillis is a platform that will help Australian real estate agents get ahead of their competitors.

The real estate industry already has companies emerging tempting vendors to sell their property by themselves and completely cut agents out of the selling process altogether.

Craig Heppell, CEO of Agent In A Box, an online platform helping vendors sell their property without an agent, commented, “in the last 12 months, memberships have grown well over 30 per cent.”

However while it remains highly unlikely people will warm to the trend of tackling the sale of their property on their own, just the knowledge that these companies exist should be enough to alert agents that their industry is changing, and that it’s changing quick.

Agents need to grow with and adapt to their changing industry.

Now more than ever, it’s absolutely crucial for real estate professionals to give buyers and sellers a reason to pick them over the thousands of other possible agents.

And what better way to do that than joining Twillis, the first of its kind MLS in Australia. When you can boast that you’re a part of a platform that can help get thousands of eyes on a property they otherwise wouldn’t have seen, you automatically give them a thousand more reasons to do business with you.

Whether you’re a buyer, seller or an agent – Twillis will allow you to catapult your property’s reach in ways not offered by any other service into untapped markets all around the world.