Hi,well I've been in this game a little while, my take is a little different on this,and what I've been told by Realtors, who i had pretty good relationships with, here goes,if your a licensed Realtor,then yes you have to go through the Realtor,however if not then you can go directly and act as if you don't know, what you'll find is that some ppl aren't happy with their Realtor or he or she is lazy and not communicating, and then take it from there, but if there is a good relationship and they refer you to their Realtor then ,it's a different ball game alot not all don't want to deal with us,hope this helps.