How to pick an estate agent

[Isthiscorrect]

So I've read a lot of threads on here about estate agents and how bad some of them are.
I need to appoint an estate agent in the UK whilst I live overseas. Obviously I can just look in the area on Rightmove and see what agents are in my postcode. But what do I need to know? How do I pick one?
Any ideas please?

I would join the local Facebook group for the local town/village/area and ask for recent experiences and recommendations. Also search 'estate agent' and the like in the group search bar for previous similar posts and you'll get a feel for who gets recommended most.

I did this and chose a smaller local agent but one who was by far mentioned by name the most, our house sold within two weeks.

Oh I should add, I also had four in total round to value and you also get a feel from chatting to them so make sure you pick a few and talk on the phone about your situation.

@Gotosleep91 thanks. That all makes perfect sense

We did the following:
Looked for agencies that sold houses similar to ours and appeared to have a reasonable success rate.
Agencies with a decent standard of photography, that do a floor plan and don't trot out a load of BS in their sales spiel on the website for each home. You know the sort, fabulously flowery language that makes it sound like Buckingham Palace.
Got several quotes as they charge different rates % of sales.
Negotiated on the base sale rate.
Agreed a % rate for the advertised price [not the highest valuation provided] and agreed 0.5% over for anything achieved higher than that.

Had a great experience. House sold very quickly but different market from 2024

One lesson I learned was to ensure our personal contact details were removed from their Database after the sale. Their staff contacted me about every 6 months after the sale completed and we'd moved to ask if we were still interested in selling or renting the house they'd just sold for us.

Things I look for:
Local so they will be more easily available for viewings. We are in a village and it's annoying when people list busy city agents who don't have much flexibility for viewings.
Realistic valuations, can they tell you what the quick sale price would be, the highest let's hold out for the right buyer price and their realistic in between.

Can they talk about what else they've sold locally and how it relates to yours price wise to back up their valuation.
Are they enthusiastic about your house, are they mentioning selling points. We've had a valuation recently, one estate agent was great, picked out the positives and talked about the kinds of buyers this would appeal to. They other couldn't have been less enthusiastic if she'd trief. Her only comment was "yes, it'll probably sell" I don't know why she bothered coming out.

We've used the same local agent for our last buy and two sales. They are very popular for a reason. They are locally based, family owned, have reasonable fees and are genuinely nice people- very proactive, helpful and professional. By the end of the process you will want to strangle someone so it helps to have someone understanding! Ours are notorious for over valuing so I've now become adept at insisting they value realistically. A couple of other local agents are more realist in valuation but charge more, the others are big chains and seemingly not interested in sales!

Watch this video (UK Property Market Stats Show) . At the end, they discuss a local market and how EA's have done using some software called Insights from TwentyEA.

Ask your prospective EA's to share their own figures with you.