How did you choose Your Estate Agent ?

[Oblomov]

I had two estate agents round on Friday. Both sent their letters / written confirmation of value, by 6pm friday night.
That very day, I found out what a house 2 doors down, has been priced at - it is under offer.
One state agent was very rude and gave a price £20,000 below the other.

The most expensive one valued it at exactly the same price as the house down the road - so I consider him to be more 'market aware'.

None of our friends have sold recently. We have no advice, to say, use this agent, or that agent.

Any advice would be welcome, on how to choose an agent. Apart from the obvious % of their fee, do you choose based on gut instinct ?

I have phoned 4 more today. The rude one is clearly out of the picture. I felt we had to get atleast 3 more quotes.

We chose our EA because they had sold my friend's house in under a week, they were also offering 0.95%. But truly they were crap and offered a terrible service once signed up to them. The contract was for 16 weeks and they overvalued our house by £30k. My dh and I eventually had to trawl Rightmove to find something comparable to ours in the area and lower the price accordingly. My dh gave them hell and got them to agree to go "joint sole agency" with another EA who sold the property in two weeks.

Try not to let yourselves be tied-in for too long in case they are rubbish. I would go for 6-8 max. Tell them, do not let them dictate to you!

Thank you Fimbo.
How short a contract / tie in, do you think you could get away with ?
If you said to them, I initially only commit to .... 4 weeks, remebering that May is PRIME TIME, and before the Jun 1st deadline, for pack, do you think they would acccept that ?