Rental Dilemma

I have a rental property in a popular area and wish to advertise for tennants...Has anyone out there have some theories on going about this task. It is a 3 B/R property double lock up garage...Just a standard maintainance free home.Is it best to have an open home and hopefully some one arrives at a high price that you did not expect.?...Or just do the same old thing and advertise in the local paper with a price.
Your thoughts most appreciated.
If I were you I'd firstly research the rents in the area in order to determine the maximum you might get. If your property has any highly desirable features that others might not possess then advertise these (eg: a/c, pool, free lawn maintenance included, cable tv etc) along with your desired rent. Be prepared to drop the rent if you have little response or the market is in a slump (at the moment this very much depends on where it is).

In my experience, I've found that you get a better response by putting a price on something. There's nothing people hate more than having to ring up to find out how much something costs- and that includes rents.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.
We advertise the street name,price pets neg and brief description .When the phone rings we ask for their name and contact #,tell them the house # so they can do a drivebyand ask them to ring back if they are still interested to organise an appointment.They are told to bring along the following to help in the application process
1 Photo ID
2 Proof of current address ie Elect,Phone,Gas bill
3 Proof of income
4 Previous rent receipts
5 References
Everything is cross checked and they are asked if they would mind if we had an internal inspection of their current address. We've never gone inside but a driveby is worthwhile to see how the outside is kept.We find by advertising pets neg you can get a full market rent ,sometimes even more and you seem to have less vacancies as agents don't seem to like pets .There always seems to be one dodgee applicant ie
1 I'm pretty quiet and I'm prepared to pay 6 mths in advance (there mightn't be any floorboards it 6 mths)
2 Asks if the house has gas connected when we are standing in the ketchen next to the electric oven and he is a boilermaker
3 you ring back and they answer to a different name.
Hope this helps, Bushy

PS Has anyone else had a dodgee?Info on what to look out for would be interesting and might make a good thread