Realtors still spend the majority of their time working on marketing themselves as opposed to servicing clients. "Referrals" is disingenuous because realtors spend so much time reminding clients of themselves - would this referral have occurred without that?
This seems like a strangely cynical or naive perspective that just reinforces the anti-realtor messaging you think is injected by commenters. >50% of buyer agents are engaged through either referrals or repeat business. Are you not intending to use referrals as a customer acquisition channel?