Ask around. Get advice from others who have bought a house in the area you are interested in. My mom told me to drive around the area I was interested in and call the realtor who had the most signs up. Our advice for finding a good realtor is to find someone who is young, aggressive, and in a similar situation in life as you. They'll be more likely to have th same ideals as you.

No. A realtor who wants you to sign a contract saying that you won't go to another realtor isn't confident in their skills. Good realtors know that if they perform well for their clients, the clients will stick with them and be loyal to them. It is appropriate to sign a contract when you are putting an offer on a house.

Find another one. Period! We went through four realtors before we found one we liked and now we'll only use him. The others just weren't working for us and it was tough to switch with some of them, but in the end it was much easier to find what we were looking for with a realtor we liked.

In our experience too many people choose a realtor because of a relationship, ie family member, neighbor, co-worker etc. We feel that this is one of the worst ways to choose a real estate agent. When making one of the biggest investments of your life, you should want the best. Some feelings may be hurt but this is your money that your are dealing with and the right real estate agent can make a night and day difference. It could even be worse if the realtor doesn't perform well for you. Then both parties have thier feelings hurt and the relationship could be damaged.