Thanks to the Internet, offering your second home as a vacation rental has never been easier or, potentially, more profitable. In the past, you really had only two choices. You could either list your second home with a property management company and trust it to get you bookings for the season, or you could place ads in newspapers and handle bookings, security deposits, rental checks, and all the other details yourself.

Unfortunately, there are at least two disadvantages to listing with a property manager. First, a property manager's goal is to rent as much if his or her inventory as possible. None of them has any interest in renting your particular property. Second, while property managers can free you from all booking and maintenance chores, their fees can range from 15% to a whopping 50% of your rental income.

As for the traditional do-it-yourself approach, newspaper ads are expensive, and placing ads on free services like Craigslist requires constant reposting since they disappear after a week or so.

So what do you do? You own a second home. Since it isn't your main nest, you aren't reluctant to offer it as a vacation rental. How can you maximize the income it throws off while minimizing management and maintenance hassles?

Step One is to list your property with HomeAway.com, owner of the four leading vacation home rental sites. The cost is $300 a year, and it gets you on CyberRentals, GreatRentals, A1Vacations, and HomeAway's own site. For an additional $180, you can also list on HomeAway's VRBO.com, the biggest such site on the Internet. We also recommend VacationRentals.com ($150), for a total annual cost of $630. Think of these systems as your starter set. And avoid the temptation to waste time listing with the free sites that are sure to solicit you.

Step Two is to get set up to accept major credit cards. Costco, Sam's Club, and trade associations and business groups offer credit card "merchant accounts" as membership benefits. But we recommend going to www.rentors.org and clicking on "Vacation Rental Credit Card Merchant Account." Like Rentors.org itself, this program was created by the leading vacation rental listing sites now owned by HomeAway.com. The financial institutions involved are aware of the unique considerations involved with vacation rentals.

Being able to accept credit cards for booking and damage deposits simplifies things enormously. You don't have to worry about checks clearing (or bouncing). Or being delayed in the mail. You don't have to write out and mail refund checks for damage deposits. You can handle all financial transactions associated with your rental online or over the phone.

Step Three is to build an on-site team of maintenance and service people. When you have a plumbing or electrical problem in your main home, you know who to call. Your second home/vacation rental may be located a thousand miles away, but the process is the same. Your guest phones you with a problem. So you call the appropriate local service person to take care of it. The same with cleaning and other services. You do not have to be on-site. You just have to previously established relationships with good people. Alternatively, as you're setting things up, you may find that a property management company or rental agency will agree to sell you cleaning and repair services a la carte.

Actually, this brings up an interesting point. The savvy property management companies realize that the Internet has altered the balance of power. Rental agencies are no longer a property owner's only choice. So a growing number are willing to negotiate. For example, you might list with a property manager but arrange a deal under which you pay full commission on bookings they bring in but pay no commission on bookings your own marketing efforts generate.

Here's the bottom line: If you're not renting out your second home when you and your family are not using it, you are passing up thousands of dollars a year in extra income, not to mention applicable tax deductions. And, thanks to the Internet, you no longer have to pay ruinous commissions to property management companies. You can do it all yourself and keep all the money. (This is a lot easier than you might think.) Or you can do some things yourself and pay for other services. There is definitely a continuum of possibilities when it comes to making your second home or vacation property work for you!