I have been in real estate 37 yrs and watched many come and go. Most look at it as easy money but when they find out you actually have to work to make money, they go back to being hairdressers.
Reaserch any agent and don't always go to the piad review sites. An agent worth his/her price will be easy to find and if asked will give you names and numbers of past clients. I have some clients that I have worked woth over 30 yrs (I'm commercial only and they are repeat customers).
In Florida, its illegal to get kick backs for inspectors, lenders etc. The agent should give you a list of names and allow you to pic whoever you want. Having a list is still problematic so my standard reply is look on google or many years ago, use the phone book. Agents would have liability if they provided you any type of contractor that in turns screws soemthing up or misses something. I'm not saying every agent will comply to this but they should.
The value of a seasoned agent is his/her ability to work through an edicated offer based on facts and comps, not feelings. If you ask an agent what a house or property might be worth, unless they provide you with the research they did to get there, move on. Now that goes out the window in a huge subdivision with lots of sales, it then boils down to a per square foot price but the agent should give you that info.
One of the things that I always did is rather than assume the lsiting agent knew what they were doing is by sking them to provide me the comps they used to arrive at this list price. That will throw most off but it makes a difference. I just had an offer accepted for $675,000 on a buildig that was listed at $975,999 because the listing agent could not justify his price and the seller realized that he had no clue what he was talking about and took our offer.
Best of luck and OP feel free to DM me and I can get you a great agent in your area.
Tim Harber, CCIM (
https://www.flccim.com/about-ccim/)
.. get it??? 
Have a co worker who lucked into flipping houses at the right time. early 2000's bought a repo condo cheap, fixed it up and made good money... did it again, did it again.... well about 2007 he decided it was time to build a house of his own to sell and you all know what happened about that time frame... he lost everything on that... I talked to him about it, me being on the periphery of the business for awhile and told him he just fell into it when it was EZ, and got caught when it all took a crap.. live and learn.
