Make Your iHOUSE Website Work For You On Craigslist

Craigslist can be an awesome place to generate leads, but in November of 2013 they changed the rules significantly. Their goal was to make it much easier for the user to actually see homes that are for sale and they’ve accomplished that.

What’s missing is the ability to link to any website – because that’s where so much of the abuse was taking place… suddenly, as a buyer or seller, you’d find yourself at some really questionable site or kicked out to a non-working link. It had become a mess. Also, photos have to be uploaded one at a time.

Many agents and brokers find that they are actually getting better results now from Craigslist because it’s easier for the potential buyer to find what they want on the service.

Fortunately, you can actually submit your listings through your iHOUSE website, which makes it pretty simple.

We have a video tutorial about adding listings to your local Craigslist; the steps are  summarized below:

What you need

To use the craigslist tool effectively you’ll need not only access to your iHOUSE website but also to know where, on your computer, you’ve stored the photographs for the listing you want upload.

1. Log into the Administration area of your ihOUSE website.
2. From Quicklinks choose: Edit your website
3. From the edit mode of your home page, click on: Featured Listings
4. From Featured Listings, choose the listing you want to submit to craigslist.
5. Once you’re in the proper listings edit mode, from the top menu, choose: Edit this listing
6. In the Edit this listing mode click on the link to: Submit to Craigslist

This opens a page that outlines the steps you’ll need to go through to submit your listing to Craigslist. Review the page. When you’re ready,  click on the Submit to Craigslist in Step 1. This will open a new window and you’ll actually be on the Craigslist submission page.

On Craigslist submission page

It’s pretty straight forward from here on.

1. Choose the city your listing is in and press: Continue
2. Most of the time you’ll want to choose: Housing offered
3. Generally you’ll want to choose, even if you’re an agent: Real estate by broker

Cut and paste or…

When you’re filling out the Posting description page on Craigslist you can either cut and paste the description, including the html, from the edit listing portion of your website, or re-enter the information by typing it in.

In the reply to section, make sure to use your email address. You can choose to have Craigslist display it as written or hide is using a function that makes it anonymous, which may make you less vulnerable to spam.

When you click Continue, Craigslist will attempt to map the location. If it look correct to you, fine, if not, choose: Do not show.

Adding images

Craigslist allows up to 24 images! You’ll have to upload them from your computer one at a time. As they point out, the first one you load will be the featured image, so make it a good one.

The next page will show you how your ad looks – if you like it, hit publish in the lower right hand corner, if not, edit until you do.

You’ll probably receive an email once it’s published. Keep those where you can find them. You may want to edit the ad, post it again or take it down when the property is sold.

Using the Craigslist tool from your iHOUSE website makes uploading listings to Craigslist almost easy.

What’s been your experience with posting listings on Craigslist. Are you familiar with the revised rules? What do you think? Tell us in comments.