Which price to choose?

[thinkingofselling]

I always swore I would never sell again having been totally traumatised by my last experience of buying and selling!
Anyway here I am thinking of selling my house, as I've said on a previous thread it's in a very sought after area, its quite unique, within 10 miles radius there are very few like it. So three estate agent valuations down the road and Im confused at which one to choose.
A. Valued it just under the Zoopla price, local agent (been in village for years) knows the area well and said that the market is very strong and the house it pretty special. Personally I feel maybe over valued it although when I look at 3 bed properties in a 10 miles radius I do wonder as many are 100K more than he suggested but he doesn't use Rightmove so IMO and many on here not really a goer.
B. Localish agent sells lots of listed house (ours is listed) based in localish town, said before stamp duty holiday they reckon we might have got what agent A suggests but now maybe 5% less but we might be lucky. Thought we should just do a bit of fairly significant DIY (which makes my heart sink) before selling. Uses Rightmove.
C. Based in next village sells lots of houses in area valued it 12% less than agent A, but talked about us putting on the market for 5% less than agent A's price, agent then hypes it up and "generates lots of interest in it" from prospective "proceedable" purchaser who've already registered an interest with this agent in properties like ours in the area and who are apparently desperately looking for a property and then we drop the price by 7% to sell it! He said we wouldn't need to even put it in Rightmove etc (although they do use it) because it will easily so sell.
So as not to drip feed its chain free, we already own outright another property which we are moving too, we are selling to be mortgage free, (we are getting close to retirement and want to downsize our lives) but ideally would like to come out with enough money to buy two buy to lets (DH's pension). If we get what agent B says we can do this, if we get what agent A says we can do the and have a bit left over (for a rainy day) if we get what agent C says we will probably only buy 1 buy to let maybe two if we're lucky and then have to "invest" the rest.
Alternatively don't sell it rent it out (will easily cover mortgage payments) but Im not sure we want the hassle of this.
From previous traumatising experience I don't trust estate agents in any shape or form and my bullshit radar is twitching especially about agent C and his large list of prospective proceedable buyers registered with them thus not needing to put it on Rightmove but maybe I've just cynical in my old age.

Should just add agent C also thought we should do some DIY will take about 3 weeks (hopefully) and he would use this time to hype up property with prospective purchasers.
Agent A didn't seem to think DIY was necessary.

Bump

I’m unclear as to why you think it’s more hassle to rent out one property (the house) than two investment properties? If you sell the house to buy two buy-to-lets you have all the costs of selling, plus costs of buying (and you’ll pay the additional SDLT rate twice for two additional properties). If the rental yield on the house is reasonable and you think you can find a tenant I’d stick with it, rent it out and save yourself the headache.

I would probably go with B, middle value, knows local area and has experience with listed buildings and uses Rightmove.

Sorry I didnt make it very clear its a hassle because of the distance we would live from the house and listed properties if they are very old which ours is by their very nature require general TLC and although structurally it is in good shape they do require lots of maintenance to keep them in good condition and at the very least listed building consent has to be obtained for some work which although free is a bit tedious and and any work can be expensive e.g a fairly simple recent roof overhaul cost £5K. We would probably buy too modern low maintenance flats localish to us as we are both reducing our working hours and my DH is very good with most DIY (not roofing) so we would have to time to maintain them etc if necessary.

My gut feeling is to go with B.

I'd avoid C. B sounds a good option, but I'd be tempted to give A a try. It doesn't sound like you are in a desperate hurry to sell, and with another property you're in a good position, so might be worth a punt? You could always relist with B 6 months down the line if needed?

@Wainwriter

I'd avoid C. B sounds a good option, but I'd be tempted to give A a try. It doesn't sound like you are in a desperate hurry to sell, and with another property you're in a good position, so might be worth a punt? You could always relist with B 6 months down the line if needed?

I sort of agree hence my dilemma we aren't in a desperate hurry if only A was on Rightmove I think Id give it a go with them. I suggested to my DH we got another valuation from another agent but he couldn't see the point we're rural all other agents are either in our nearest large town 17 miles away a completely different area think post war and or modern properties. Or our small local market town 11 mile away there agents are either super posh selling country estates Savills etc or couple of well know chains it seems from having looked at their websites over the last couple of months not often used by those selling listed properties.

Does it really matter that agent A doesn't use Rightmove? I mean, normally I can see that it does, but in this case it might not. If the agent is local and knows the market that's a point in his favour and he must make some sales to still be in business, surely!

Also if you do later switch estate agents, most people won't be aware that it was previously on the market, so they won't wonder why it's not selling, if that makes sense?

I'd go with B but tell them to start listing at 10k over what they suggest and let people knock you down. That said, currently people are offering above asking price

I would take a completely different approach and pretend to be someone else (say a female relatives details with DP's mobile no or something) and ring up and try to view a similar property in the same price bracket.

Pick the one whos the nicest and most willing to show you the property.

B, though if A is successful maybe they have great contacts and don't need Rightmove. But I think you'd be missing out on a lot of potential buyers, especially those not in your town already.