Right, madam. I'll just take down a few details...

For many people the most stressful part of moving house is not finding a new home or juggling mortgage loans, but the initial trudge down the high street.

A survey to be released next month reveals that typical buyers register with 13 different estate agents to ensure they have the best choice. That means visits to 13 offices, giving the same details time after time. In the 21st century, is this the most efficient way of buying a home?

One agent thinks the answer is clearly no.

Henry Pryor, who used to work for big name agencies such as FPDSavills, is swimming against the tide by introducing a 'Multi Listing System' (MLS). This allows buyers to register with only one agent but get details of suitable homes on the books of rival agents. Conversely the MLS allows a seller to register with just one agent but get their home marketed by dozens, or even hundreds of others.

MLS is widely used in the Netherlands, Denmark, the US and Canada, where it is seen as a genuine service to buyers and sellers. But so far it has been vehemently opposed by British estate agents. Pryor's version works like this:

· A coordinating agency - Charles Lister - recruits estate-agency chains and independents to subscribe to the pooling arrangement central to the MLS;

· All of the subscribing agents' property portfolios are loaded on to a single database;

· Buyers registering with any agent in the MLS pool ask for property details in the usual way, stating their preferred location, size, price range and so on;

· Instead of receiving details of suitable homes registered only with that one agent, the buyer gets details of all appropriate homes on sale through every agent in the MLS pool - all details are available to all agents in their offices;

· The seller's commission (typically 2.5 per cent instead of the average 2 per cent) is split between the agent finding the buyer and the agent instructed to sell the house.

Pryor has so far recruited about 150 agencies and coordinates the pooling of details through the website www. charleslister.co.uk There is a 'background' section on the site that can be accessed only by subscribing to estate agents, who can offer extra information to buyers visiting their offices in person - a key point for most agents, who believe face-to-face transactions lead to extra business.

'We started in September with a 3,500 properties and hope to keep getting agents on board,' says Pryor.

But despite investing £60,000 in the venture he remains realistic about its chances of success: 'I'm trying to fight against the paranoia of the existing estate agency industry in the UK, which has individual agents preoccupied with trying not to lose any instruction to any competitor. It's mad.'

Opposition to the MLS by traditional agents is high, because opponents claim sellers pay too little.

Melfyn Williams, former president of the National Association of Estate Agents and a director of Anglesey-based agency Williams and Goodwin, has gone on record as saying: 'People keep trying to bring in multi-listing because it works in America, but the big difference is they charge 6 per cent commission and we only get 1.5 per cent.'

However, as UK house prices are so high compared with most other countries, the commission paid here - although small in percentage terms - is often as high in real terms as that paid in countries with lower property prices.

Pryor is sanguine about the opposition, predicting that the site will be a success. It has attracted upmarket estate agents selling properties priced at £500,000 or above, whose sellers are less likely to quibble about paying a slightly higher commission.

Catherine Haddon is selling her grade II-listed Georgian house in Saxmundham in Suffolk through the firm. 'I decided to put the house on the market with Charles Lister to give my country property the greatest chance of a quick sale. It only costs me another 0.5 per cent, which I pay only if the house is sold,' she says.

But the service will survive only if enough agents join to give it a critical mass of properties in each area, as well as the country. It is a tall order in an industry perceived as being more interested in traditional rivalries than in modernisation.

As Pryor says: 'This scheme combines new technology with new ideas. As with all things technical and innovative, the property establishment's lethargy may yet kill it off.'