Meet Sean Walls. Not only is he the consummate bargain shopper when it comes to real estate investing, he has started a really neat company to unite Realtors listings and Buyers via Twitter. It’s called Twitter MLS.com!

“I was sitting in Starbucks” — please note Sean gets a lot of inspiration from Sbux java — “looking at my cell phone, after I had purchased the $12,500 duplex and I thought, wow, what if we could use Twitter to get this information out to people?”

As an investor, Sean knows how rapidly buyers want fresh information on a property — reductions, contracts fallen through, REOs. That’s exactly how he found his own $12,500 bargain.

Twitter made perfect sense as a vehicle for getting real estate information out to consumers who are on the go, phone always in hand, maybe even looking at property. Sean hired a programmer who wrote up a code, popped some technology behind it, and Twitter MLS.com was born. Realtors use the system by pre-paying for a certain number of tweets — like a pre-paid phone card — and the cost is dirt cheap: ten cents per listing per post. You can post to any city — Sean has covered all the major cities in the U.S. and continues to add new ones daily. Europe is next. And you can post multiple times per day. That’s it. The realtor doesn’t even need a Twitter account or for that matter, know what it is or how it works. They go to the TwitterMLS.com website and follow the prompts, typing in the MLS number and link of all their listings and how many times they want the post to tweet. So when those tweets go out, anyone following TwitterMLS — not just those following the realtor — gets the tweets. And the latest deals.

So you ask: why can’t the Realtor do this themselves? Well, they can. Erin and Travis Mathews are twitting all over the place, because they are one of the first Real Estate teams in Dallas to understand how to use social media for real estate. I heard all about this two years ago at Inman — when I first learned what a Tweet was. The beauty of Twitter MLS is that it’s nationwide and has so many followers, often many more than a single Realtor ever could — 30,000 and multiplying as of this writing, and then there is the benefit for buyers: they only need to follow one feed per city, not one per realtor, they can see ALL the listings. And then there’s the layering: Realtors put out a listing, say a home that’s just been reduced. Twitter MLS followers pick up on it and re-tweet it to their followers. Within an hour you can have ten thousand eyes on a single listing.

“The way we buy and sell real estate is changing so rapidly,” says Walls, an Australian native. “87% percent of real estate sales transactions start on the Internet.”

But now, they could be starting on TwitterMLS.

Update: No monthly fee, I clarified with Sean.

It seems that folks born prior to 1968 — the year of the Democratic convention in Chicago — have brain wiring programmed to think that everything you want to sell must be advertised in the newspaper. (I think this is the result of subliminal advertising.) People under age 40, however, have been wired differently. The fact that the dividing line seems to be those born during or after 1968 strikes me as ironic. Social networking such as Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo and Twitter are quickly becoming the marketing vehicles for younger agents and buyers. So, how to write a real estate ad for this hip generation and not ignore those who still read newspapers? Consider first the AGE of your buyers: Over 50, toss a few bucks on a Sunday classified. Under 50, you’d better have a presence on CraigsList, the web and Facebook.

Write with your customer in mind.Let’s say that you’re a lover of history, and you bought a historic house on Swiss Avenue. Who is your customer? Someone who also likes the grace and character of older homes. Keep that in mind when you write your ad copy — what does your historic home have that the run-of-the-mill McMansions don’t have, things like “original maple hand-bordered floors” or “Victorian tile fireplace surround”. Picture your buyer as you write, and think about what would appeal to them.

Describe the property, not the customer. Be careful not to run afoul of Fair Housing laws – phrases like “family-friendly” and “exclusive gated community” sound tantalizing but may discourage potential shoppers. Better to stick to absolute descriptions of your real estate like “four bedrooms”, “mature”, and “quiet ‘hood.” Never, never mention a target buyer’s race, color, or religion – that’s clearly against the law!

Name drop brand names and materials.Two of the top five real estate word/phrases words are “granite” and “Corian”? (Others: “state of the art”, “gourmet”, and a nod to our love of nature, “Maple” as in wood, not sirup.) Those words describe specific materials, and that says something valuable to the customer. Of course, you have to know what shoppers in your price point want and expect. If the preference at your price point is for a “Viking” range, you might not want to highlight your dependable “Sears” low-end stove. Descriptive words like “oak flooring,” “soapstone counter tops,” or “Miele dishwasher” – buzz them like the nuggets of a society column.

Look at the competition’s ads. Sounds simple, but you’d be amazed how many FSBOs never do this. Look for repeated phrases that might be evidence of what customers are interested in. Also look to see what differentiates your house. If the competition is a sea of typical North Dallas 1950′s ranches you have a mid-century modern, you might want to emphasize your “open floor plan” or “entertainment flow”.  Show you’ve got that extra pizzazz.

Be careful with code words. There are lots of real estate euphemisms – “fixer-upper” equals shack, ”cozy” equals  “small” – but customers sometimes over-correct for them as they go in and out of fashion.  “Motivated seller”  seems to be the catch-phrase of the day, don’t use it if you don’t plan to slice and dice your price. “Starter home” is another term that’s useful today to attract buyers pepped up with the $8000 first time home buyer credit.

Get ready to rewrite. Rewriting classifieds is one of the big agent secrets; if an ad doesn’t pull right, agents tweak and start over. It’s a good idea to tweak ads weekly and keep careful notes of what works best.

This time, however, the marketing campaign at Briggs will be far less slick.

“We’re going to keep it simple,” says Robbie Briggs, “marketing it through the internet and ingenuity. The buyer for this property will be a rare person, likely international.”

Or a consortium looking to turn the Dream manse into a spa or resort/surgery center where,  for example, celebs could jet into Dallas (D/FW is only 30 minutes) get nipped, tucked,  have fat removed or replenished,  and recoup at Champs D’ Or in 35,000 French-inspired square feet, meander up to the Hall of Mirrors-inspired ballroom and check out your eye-lift,  sip healing tea in the Tavern-On-The-Green inspired tea room, sit under the hair dryer in the salon off the Chanel closet and master bedroom where, for top dollar, you can sleep off the Vicodan.

Goldfield has more than $36 million in the house. At least one sharp agent told him years ago to dump the whole place for under $30 million. But no. 

“I think the timing is right,” says Robbie, “We can’t fix a man’s dream, we cannot transport this home to a different location.”

Not to Beverly Drive, because then buyers would not be getting quite such a bargain: at $27 million, the buyer will be getting 2/3rds of the home, and all 25 acres, for free.

Such a deal!

$40,000 luxury car with purchase of this home.

The roadster will be a Mercedes or other vintage auto valued at $40,000, your pick of the fleet from Benny Black’s Platinum Motorcars.

I tell you, the agents are getting mighty creative out there trying to get buyers off the fence.  As one buyer told me, the houses north of LBJ and in the boonies are practically free, south of LBJ they all but buy you a diamond ring. I can hardly wait!