Thanks to Keisha for suggesting that we add a parking option for “carport”.

Carport option added to Virtual Tour Details

Carport option showing on Virtual Tour Web Page

Carport option showing on Virtual Tour Widget

Let us know if you have ideas for improving TourVista!

TourVista has customers all around the world and our newest update is to change the currency for your tour’s pricing so it is appropriate for your country.

Follow these steps to update your virtual tour’s pricing currency:

1. Sign in to your TourVista account
2. Select the virtual tour from My Virtual Tours
3. Notice the new option for changing currencies next to pricing. Select the appropriate currency.
4. If your currency is not listed, contact us to request that we add your currency.
5. Save your virtual tour

The currency will be updated on your dedicated page and also your virtual tour widgets.

Thanks for the suggestion Gabe! We listen to (good) suggestions from our users.  If you have an idea on how TourVista can be improved, let us know!

Tutorial on how to set the availability date for your property virtual tours on TourVista.com and also on your Community Website if you have one. Choose from 3 options:

1. Now - if your property is currently available.
2. Please Call – if unsure of availability. On your Community Website, this message will show: “Limited availability. Please call to be added to our waitlist.“
3. Not Until Date… – if this property is not available until a certain date in the future, select  and enter that date.

It’s easy to link your virtual tours on TourVista to your Facebook and Twitter pages.  Just copy/paste the URL (web page address) for your Facebook and Twitter pages into the form on My Account when logged into TourVista.

Connect your virtual tours to your accounts on Facebook and Twitter

By doing so, your viewers will be able to connect with you in new ways.  Thanks to our friends at www.zaran.com for suggesting this latest improvement to TourVista.

Recently a TourVista member requested that his email address be shown with the other contact information on his virtual tours.  This would allow his potential customers to email him directly with one click.  That makes good sense.

We take our member’s suggestions to heart and are pleased to announce the release of this new functionality for TourVista.  Now you have the option to display your email address as a link on your virtual tours.  The email address shown will be the same email you use to login to your TourVista account.

It’s easy to turn this on/off for each of your virtual tours.  Just select “Yes” from the “Show My Email” option when managing the Property Details for your virtual tours, like this:

field for toggling if your email address shows publicly

And here’s how your email address will be shown on your virtual tour:

showing your email address on a virtual tour

Of course, your potential customers can simply complete the More Information form that shows on all of your virtual tours, which will email you directly while keeping your email address private.

Take note: by publishing your email address, you are increasing the chances that automated spam-sending programs may obtain your email address and send unsolicited emails.

An annoying website bug was squashed today: the ability to drag and drop property photos in Internet Explorer web browser.

This is a great (and fun!) feature of TourVista.  No need to mess with annoying up/down arrows to put your photos in the perfect order.  Just click on a photo with your mouse, drag it to the proper order relative to the other photos, and drop it into place!  Piece of cake.  The other photos will automatically rearrange themselves, too.

Watch a video demo of sorting photos via drag and drop (jump to 1:15 in the video).

It was recently brought to our attention that the custom virtual tour links was not working for Internet Explorer (IE) web browsers. Ah yes, IE, the nemesis of all web developers. We’ve fixed this. Sorry for the hassle for any of you IE users that experienced this bug when building MLS-compliant links for your virtual tours.

In case you are wondering how to use this nifty feature, watch this 1 minute video tutorial on creating a non-branded / MLS-compliant link for your virtual tour.

TourVista’s interactive floor plans are a great addition to your virtual tour.  If you already have floor plan graphics, you are ready to connect them to your photos and create interactive floor plans.

But how do you create the floor plan graphic in the first place?

You may be able to get floor plan graphics from an assessor or your home blueprints (if you can find them). Or you could just do it the old fashioned way: with a pencil and some graph paper!

Drawing a sketch of your floor plans and converting that sketch into a floor plan graphic is a fast and easy way to create your floor plans.  Here’s a tutorial on how to convert your sketches into floor plan graphics using Photoshop.

The video above follows these steps for creating a floor plan graphic from your hand-drawn sketches using Photoshop:

1. take a picture of the sketch from straight above
2. open picture in Photoshop and crop it; leave a small padding for the borders and dimensions should be at least 500px
   1. if long and narrow, consider rotating it 90 degrees
3. add guides for each wall
4. draw exterior & interior walls on their own layers
   1. hold “shift” key and click away
5. add room name labels
6. export for web as .gif
7. save .psd for future reference
8. upload floor plan graphic to your virtual tour on www.TourVista.com

Walls

• color: #777777 (gray)
• pencil width: 5px for exterior; 3px for interior

Room Labels

• Myriad Pro – Bold Condensed
• color: #000000 (black)
• Size: 18-36pt

Note: when uploaded to TourVista the floor plan will be shrunk to around 350px wide.

Leverage the power of Facebook, Twitter and over 50 other social networks to help spread the word about your virtual tours. It is super easy to do and a great way to share & promote your real estate listings using the web’s hottest new technologies.

Instructions: Post your virtual tour on Facebook

1. open your dedicated property website in any web browser (e.g. www.tourvista.com/784)
2. click on the Share tab
3. mouseover the “Social networks and bookmarking sites” button and click on Facebook

Facebook will open in a new window and pre-populate a Profile post for your Wall that includes:

• a link to your virtual tour website
• the property address, type and description
• a thumbnail image – select a different image using the little arrow buttons

Add a personal note at the top if you’d like and click the Share button to update your Wall and your friend’s News Feeds.

Note: you have the option of “Send a Message” that will email your TourVista link to select friends directly from Facebook. We recommend using the Wall method described above because it allows visibility to all of your friends (present and future) and will generate more traffic for you.  In this sense, the Wall post is less invasive on your friends and more permanent for your online marketing.

ps – speaking of Facebook, if you haven’t claimed your personal Facebook URL yet (e.g. www.facebook.com/mattcass) do it now – www.facebook.com/username. You can get one for your company page on Facebook but only if you have 1,000 fans. Of course, we’d love to have you become a fan of TourVista’s Facebook page!

update 12/21/09: link to your Facebook and Twitter accounts directly from your virtual tours!

TourVista creates a dedicated property website and link for each of your virtual tours. For example, www.tourvista.com/784. Link to this dedicated property website in your marketing materials to maximize your property views and increase your online brand.

Property sellers: be sure to include your TourVista link in your local MLS and get maximum exposure for your property. Most MLS’s will include this link in their data feed, meaning that your virtual tour link will show on many major real estate search portals.

Some MLS’s restrict the information that you can show online about your properties. TourVista allows you to customize which information is shown ensuring that you are in compliance with your MLS.

This short video gives a demonstration on how to create a non-branded, MLS-compliant link to your virtual tour website: