Having just helped a (West Coast) client of my New Jersey Concierges service find an (East Coast) apartment, I felt like sharing a few lessons learned with potential landlords.
First of all if you are going to show your place, make sure it is clutter and mess free, clean the place, spruce it up, make the kitchen and bathroom look appealing.
It might sound like common sense but you would be surprised to know how many disasters I had to see.
On the technical side, in our Web 2.0 world, you should have a number of digital photos of the front and back of the house, parking and of course the apartment itself available. A simple floor plan and a Google Map of your location could come handy. It will smooth the process and save time for all parties.
If you want to do without the services of a Broker or a Realtor, start by listing your Rental on Craigslist. Doing so might also land your place on My Apartment Map a new service that I covered recently in Locate Apartments for rent in 12 Big US metros.
Another place where you can list your Rental is Edgeio.
All the suggestions I just made are Free or Low Cost unless your Kitchen, Carpet or Bathroom need a major makeover.
If you are more ambitious and tech savvy, you could even set up a Blog Page for your place including the photos, floor plan and Google Map that I mentioned earlier, all in one place. You could for example try VOX, the new (free) service from Six Apart.
All you have to share then is the page web address.
Most of the things I just shared apply to the USA.
I only know of one service called New York Habitat that besides New York offers apartments in London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo and the South of France.
If you know of useful services in other parts of the world feel free to share them with us.
We would be glad to include them in a follow up and credit you as the source.