How do I find  an excellent, well recommended financial advisor?

I have a couple of rental properties in the San Francisco Bay area, a
location experiencing a great rise in house prices.

I am looking for somebody able to generate informed opinions about
where the economy is going, very familiar with 1031 exchanges and
other tax minimization strategies, able to help me think through the
decision of whether or not to sell at this time.

This is a very important choice point for me, and I am willing to
invest in getting it right. What am I likely to be charged for such a
service?

Whatever you are charged, there's no guarantee that you will be correctly advised.

No one can predict the future.

Thank you for your comment, probonopublico-ga. I'm not looking for
guarantees -just the best possible advice.

1) Do your own research
   - wrong - dips*it managers will sell out good companies for a pittance

2) Follow the herd
   - and watch the revolving door

There is a big difference between 'tax advice' and 'investment management'.

Greetings,
A good financial advisor is going to try to find out exactly what you
want and need:  immediate cash (not with an exchange, of course);
better rental income than you are now getting; shorter or longer term
future sale income; whatever.
These are questions you can ask  - and have to answer - yourself.
Anyone "advisor" who is in the real estate business, may have
plausible reasons why you should do an exchange, even if you use
another broker, because that is his/her "mindset".
My search with   irs 1031 exchange    found 23,000 hits, a lot of them
real estate business related, of course.  Here is just one link:

http://www.realtor.org/libweb.nsf/pages/fg408

but it has links to other sites.  You can gain a lot a familiarity
with the subject by yourself.  If you still have questions, you will
know enough to be able to check if an advisor knows as much as you do
or if he is pretending.

And remember, any exchange will have a broker's commission, something
an advisor may not include in his calculation.  And if you were
exchanging and buying a managed rental property, you would be dealing
with a new party:  reliability,  cost, cost control in the future,
rental contracts and their terms (time-wise, too), etc., etc.  It's
all questions you can ask yourself,  and have ready to ask anyone you
talk to.

The SF Bay Area is a prime location.  If/when real estate values drop
there, they are going to drop elsewhere, but that is just one man's
opinion, no advice.
Ditto for my thought that it is better to have "a couple" of
properties rather than just one.

Thanks for your question.  I didn't know about 1031, but should have.