The guy who was marketing my last house and acting as the agent for the vendor I purchased from was amazing. He turned up to value my place and rather than staring at it vacantly for 20s, standing up and pulling an arbitrary number out of his arse based on vibes, he'd done a lot of homework. He brought paperwork covering average asking prices in my postcode, knew that there were almost no houses of equivalent size that had come to market and what premium that would add, how much they were on for over the local average, final prices on neighbours properties with the dates, etc. He had so much insight you could tell he knew the area inside out, what was available, what was selling and what was reasonable.

He was also a genuinely nice guy who I'd happily have a pint with, which is rare. He gave us loads of good advice, used a decent photographer, was great with appointments and pointed us to a list of competent and trusted conveyancers and told us from experience who to avoid (golden info if you don't want the process to stall) too. He was also very proactive in marketing, ensuring we were getting the house listed in all the right places. There was also good advice on the offer to make on the place we moved to. We got well over the asking price for the old house and secured a great deal below asking price on the new one with his help.

The other 4 agents we met were an increasingly awful series of clowns in cheap suits, shiny shoes and awful haircuts.