It might be an exception, but my 25% down offer on a $450K bank owned was accepted after I approached the listing agent directly. It closed a week ago.
Prior to that I made several offers. More than one later closed at less than what I had offered.
Most ‘investors’ are industry insiders. They know listing agents or they know people who know listing agents. And I doubt the listing agent is just a silent proxy. The agent might be able to remove you from the race with a simple verbal remark.
I interacted with few dozens of agents over the past 24 months and very few gave me any reason to believe that they would not enhance their compensation at the expense of any of the parties involved.
