I come from the Forever-appreciating Boston market where rental cash flow is almost impossible.

It will take forever to try to snowball based on cash flow alone.

New buyers need to furnish their homes and buy goods and services once they move in, all of which spurs consumer spending and expands our economy.

Once that market gets tapped, gold and silver trading as we know it will change forever.

However you'd definitely be taking money out of the buyer's agent pocket, the one who actually did bring the property to your attention.If you want to go directly to listing agents to try to get an edge making offers - an edge which is not always there, as I said, because by ethical standards listing agents should not give preference presenting offers where there is no buyer's agent - then you should not ask buyers agents to set up searches for you.Instead, you should go to riliving.com which is the consumer side of the RI MLS, and set up your own searches; then all matching listings you see will be from the listing agents and you will avoid the ethical issue of asking people to do work for you but then refusing to pay them by going directly to the listing agents and thus cutting them out of the deal.But again, if you do that, know that you are losing an advocate in the deal, someone whose eyes and ears can work in your favor during subsequent negotiations.And if you don't do that, and instead do the scenario originally posed, where you get emails from buyers agents but then go around them, directly to the listing agent, know that RI is a small state and eventually someone will figure it out and people will talk.

My wife and I are looking to purchase our next home, planning on it being our “forever” home.

Is it time consuming searching listings for all of your clients while keeping all of their preferences in mind? 

Not only can you not make them happy, but they consume more of your time then other customers.

My wife and I read and studied and researched and planned for what felt like forever. 

The county will also list out all the various taxes they charge on a property, but sometimes this isn't straight forward and can be time consuming, so the first method might be more of an estimation, but quicker.