My only other concern with her is that I'm not sure she was okay with the 35% of her commission that the relo co. keeps; she kind of dodged the question when I asked about it.

Well she really has not choice does she? If she wants the listing she will just have to accept that she is giving up 35%. If you only had 3 showings in 4 months you were probably priced too high. I would go with an agent that has a realistic pricing strategy.

It's a bad sign to me when an agent is asking if you want to rent your home before even trying to sell it. Most good agent know that renting can cause more headaches then solve them.
Go with the shortest listing time you can get.

I agree with Carol - the realtor sounds defeated even before getting the listing by asking what you're going to do if it doesn't sell. If she's a good realtor, it will sell! I'd go with the guy you like.

Go with your gut. I went through this in the spring. Although our house sold fast, it was the dealing with the realtor afterwards that proved to me I picked the wrong realtor. (Our house sold on its own...realtor had nothing to do with it other than the MLS listing.) No help during negotiation, inspections, etc. Showed up very late for our closings. To top it all off, didn't even send a thank you card to us even though we bought and sold with the company. My gut told me to use someone else, but I felt obligated. LIve and learn!

We worked with the same agent on our recent house sale and new house purchase. She has "for sale" signs with her photo on houses all over town...this is a town of 30,000 and I bet there is at least one of her signs on every other block or so. One block I know for sure has FOUR of her signs on it. She is VERY popular and is one of the top selling agents in town. We were initially concerned that maybe she was too busy for us, but that didn't end up being the case. She always answered my e-mails or returned my phone calls, rarely within the same hour unless it was some "emergency," but always by the end of the same day, and yes, sometimes she did sound rushed or like she had somewhere to go. She often called from the road...you can tell when someone is calling you on their cell from the road. She has an assistant who set up all the appts.--showings, termite inspection, appraiser, etc. She never once showed our house herself. BUT she got tons of other agents through it and held several open houses which other agents in her office hosted. She sold it in 3 months, which is fast considering there are tons of houses in our town that were on the market before ours and are still on the market.

If I were in your shoes, I'd be tempted to go with the first guy. Realtors are talkers so, yes, they do interrupt a lot.
In my experience, the "more available" agents don't sell as well. They have nice websites because they have time to put one together and keep it organized. They have all the time to talk with you because they have nowhere else to be.

I would ask both agents how they came up with the recommended price for your house. They should pull out comps from both active listings and solds. They should have a solid reason other than pulling a number out of the air.

I would interview and third agent. I had a boss that was much like the first agent above(always gives you the impression that he is in a hurry, rushes off the phone.). No thanks for that. I makes you talk fast to him and you are rushed off the phone often and forget to discuss items that you wanted to discuss with him. It frazzles you to talk to him due to his personality.

The female agent sounds possible. Just because she is asking about the renting - doesn't me she isn't planning to sell it. To me, it means she is thinking ahead at all possible real-world scenarious. This means she thinks/plans ahead. This would be a good skill when offers come in. Just because she didn't resond about the 35%, doesn't means she can't do it. You can always ask her again if you really are considering her. Now that I think of it, the 35% relo thing is a referral, and I think most of the big RE firms are good with that.

But a third agent might be perfect for you.

I am interviewing another agent tomorrow, but wasn't that impressed with him on the phone so I'm not expecting much. I guess I am leaning toward the female agent, because she is the first one to actually tell me information and ideas I didn't already know. I watch the comparable listings, especially the ones in my neighborhood, so for an agent to just email me the listings doesn't do much because I watch that myself anyway. She also seems to be more sensitive to the fact that we are losing money by selling now, she is still honest about the price but I guess it just helps that she is acknowledging that this sucks! I will ask both agents about listing times- my husband doesn't want to sign an agreement for any length of time at all but from what I have read here that isn't quite realistic and an agent won't want to advertise etc. if it looks like we can cut them loose any day- is that accurate?

To me, signing a 3 month contract is sensible unless they have a clause that will let you out of the contract if you aren't happy.

Even if an agent seems like a perfect fit, you won't know until you work with them. One that starts off with great email skills, may start ignoring emails or not replying to all of your questions. They also may advertise a lot in the beginning that there isn't enough funds to keep advertising longer then say 9 weeks.

If you are happy with everything, you can then sign another 3 months.