Hey Mike!
First of all, your realtor is right. It WILL happen eventually. Nothing works if you don't work it! And your strategy is solid but just naturally will take more time in a hot market. One thing you may ask your realtor is if his MLS supports Cloud Streams.
Most agents enter their client into their MLS and set them up for notifications when a house is listed that fits that clients criteria; price, area, schools, size, etc. The problem is the MLS may do a mass notification only several times a week, so, while these entries are just being posted, the notification you or you agent get may be a day old or even more.
Cloud Streams is a real time notification system. The minute an agent lists his property, if it meets the client's criteria, an email is sent to him, any time of the day or night. I recently used this system to find a home for one of my clients that was severely underpriced, in a great school district and the perfect size. The sellers mother had passed, he did not live locally and just wanted to move the property.
His agent listed the property about 8pm one evening, my client got an email about 8:30 pm and called me, we looked at the property very first thing the next morning, and made an offer that was accepted by noon that day. When I talked to the selling agent during our negotiations he told me he had 3 or 4 other people looking that day so it's a pretty good bet we would have lost the opportunity.
Speed is of the essence in a hot market and nowadays especially with all the new investors out there. BTW, a lot of agents have access to the Cloud Streams program but have not taken advantage for one reason or another.
Good luck and hang in Mike...you'll get one, then another and then you won't be able to keep up with it...just happens organically!
