Two figures matter more than star ratings: the sale-to-list ratio, meaning how close the closing price landed to the original asking price, and average days on market for that specific agent's listings, not the citywide figure. An agent selling at 98 percent of list in 20 days is doing something different than one averaging 92 percent in 60.
Marketing spend and photography quality matter, but they are inputs, not outcomes. The outcome that actually reflects agent skill is the pricing decision made before the listing goes live, since a house priced accurately from the start rarely needs a public price reduction that signals weakness to every buyer watching it.
Ask any agent you are considering for their own sale-to-list ratio and days-on-market average over the last 12 months, not a brokerage-wide figure. Joel Dyck's hand-reviewed valuation is built specifically to get that first price right, which is what actually drives both numbers.