[moggy]

also check the website that it is being advertised on, see how easy or difficult it is for someone to find it.
I say this because we had been looking for a couple of months for a place to buy before we found this place. Halifax were marketing the place and we had searched their site many times and not found it. The reason? I had assumed that if I typed in the name of the largest village in the area (2 miles away) that it would have shown up matches in the surrounding areas also. Being new to the area, I didn't know what the surrounding villages were called, so it wasn't until I looked things up on a map and typed in every individual village name that I actually found a match.

A very badly designed website I thought.

But definitely do a mystery shopper, also make a note (record it if possible) of what they tell you about the place.
You hear horror stories. Sometimes the agent knows someone who wants to buy it, but just not at the price you want to sell it at, so they try and leave it on the market until you take their price.

My last house I bought, the estate agent said to me "well if you don't mind living on the prison estate, they are very good value for money" I was exactly enthusiastic, but I was limited in what I could afford, so I agreed to view, expectingbars on the window and dogs patrolling etc. I was nothing like I imagined, much better than your average estate, landscaped, houses spread out (and they were only 10 years old) and the one I eventually bought was not over looked front or back.