Going through the realtor probably wouldn't work, yeah. I'd hope some people would be more open to talking than the guy you met. My sister and I ended up selling our mom's old house to a neighbor's son, who wanted to live close by because of his mom's old age. He just walked up to us when we were doing some yard work and asked if he could talk to us about it. Not sure how polite it is to do that, but it worked out in that scenario.