Our experience buying a short sales house

My wife and I have recently bought a home through a short sale. While it proved to be a financial gain for us, it was a long process that created much stress on us. We initially placed our bid in January 2009 and received acceptance of our bid in June 2009. We are closing July 2009.
A short sale is when the occupant of a house gets a financial offer for less than they owe on the mortgage. They then present this offer to their mortgage company and the mortgage company either rejects the offer or accepts the offer. Bank would accept a short sale offer in order to get the seller out of the house and to avoid foreclosure.
Since it took such a long time for the bank to accept our offer, we thought that we would not get the house for what we offered. We had to keep extended our purchase and sale agreement, re-applying for another mortgage and did multiple viewings of the property. We viewed many other homes in this price range, but nothing compared to the short sale house we placed our bid on.
This period of time was extremely trying on my wife and mine’s patience. We have excellent credit, great jobs and enough money for a substantial down payment. In a period of a down housing market, why was the seller’s bank taking so long? It would be beneficial to the bank to get us into the house and get the mortgage stream going again. However, we had to remember that the seller’s bank wasn’t analyzing us, it was only analyzing their asset (the house). Still our patience was getting thin.
We finally got notification that the bank has accepted our offer and now it was time for the home inspections. We had all of the typical inspection completed (septic, well water, building, pests, etc.) . However, I had a complete radon test order since the previous owner mentioned that the house is built on bedrock. Sure enough, the radon in the house and in the water was extremely high and needed to be addressed before we purchased. But since this is a short sale and the owner has no money, how would this get done? The seller’s bank ended up paying for the install of the equipment and the post monitoring.
The human factor of buying a short sale is very trying. In this particular case it is a divorce situation. The woman is living in this house with her children, her husband has moved out. She is no longer able to pay the mortgage. Her life seems destroyed. She and her children are forced to move back in with her parents at 40 years old. Since she is perceived as a deadbeat by her mortgage company and real estate agent, she is not given the proper respect a normal client would receive. For instance her real estate agent never notified her of the closing date; I happened to run into her boyfriend and told him we were closing in 6 days. Even a renter gets 15 days (sometimes 30 days) to vacate a property! This person’s mortgage company gave her 6 days.
It has been a long road to buy this short sale house. It has been a great financial move for my wife and I. We have purchased this house at 120K less than it is assessed at. But it was a long road and we had to be ready within a moment’s notice to close. As soon as the bank accepts the offer, they want to close and get the liability (house) off their record books. If you have the option of buying a short sale house, I recommend it, but remain flexible. Don’t try to buy one if you need to move right away. And always remember that no matter what the seller’s situation is, you are helping them out also and they too are humans.