UPDATE: 06/29/2010 – we’ve improved the availability options.  See this new blog post and short tutorial video.

A subtle but important addition is now showing on the Property Details page for your virtual tours, the availability date field:

Use this field to indicate if your property is not available until a certain calendar date.  This is especially useful for rental properties that are currently occupied and becoming available in the near future.

If you have included an availability date for a virtual tour, your dedicated property website on TourVista and your widgets will automatically update to show the available date:

If you are using TourVista’s Community Website Templates, the availability for each of your properties is shown. Either the date will show, or “Available NOW” if you have left the availability date field empty. Here’s an example from a website currently powered by TourVista, www.UWStudentHouses.com:

Our free Craigslist templates have been improved to save you even more time. In addition to the main description HTML code that you can copy and paste into your Craigslist post, your property title, price and address are also shown. Just click to highlight them, copy and paste into Craigslist.

There is also a link to your virtual tour photos on TourVista. While our Craigslist templates include your first 7 photos, it’s also a good idea to upload at least one other photo using the “Add Images” form that Craigslist provides. This photo will show at the bottom of your post. We recommend using a photo that is not already included in the template code TourVista provides.

We are working on some new Craigslist templates and look forward to offering these in the near future!

(Update: 08-16-09) – Video tutorial for posting your virtual tour onto Craigslist in only 3 minutes.

Hello Friends,

I just put the final touches on the new Craigslist Post Generator, making it the best that I’ve seen anywhere on the web. ** There are now has 6 colors to choose from. Take your pick from Blue, Gray, Green, Pink, Tan or Peach!

You can also select which aspects of your contact information to include in your Craigslist posts. This is helpful to protect your privacy (phone #, email, etc) from the spammers that scour Craigslist. Of course, your contact information will still show on your tour page on TourVista, like this one: www.tourvista.com/132

** If you can find an easier, better Craigslist post generator out there, let us know! We’ll be sure to give you some tour credits for your help =)