As first discussed here last month, we recently made an offer on a short sale property here in our new hometown of Bozeman, Montana and, now exactly one month later, there’s not a whole lot to show for that effort aside from a slightly higher level of stress, some insight into the short sale process, and growing impatience with the banks involved.

The seller signed off on the deal the day after we submitted it but we’ve yet to hear anything back in writing from the bank. About two weeks ago we were told that if we wanted to pay full price, we could have already closed by now.

Our all-cash offer is 7.5 percent below an asking price that is already quite attractive as compared to recent sales, but, it’s future sales prices that are of more concern to me – we had no intention of buying anything so soon, but the right house just happened to come along.

If this area is anything like the rest of the country, absent government life support (in the form of the homebuyer tax credit) sales are now in a virtual free-fall, down 25-30 percent or more last month based on leading indicators such as mortgage purchase applications.

We hear things third hand – from the bank, to the other realtor, to our realtor, to us – so, who knows what gets lost in the translation. Our weekly query went unanswered this week and the last we were told was the bank would take its normal 30-45 days to respond.

The reputation that short-sales have earned is well deserved and having such an important (and emotional) decision hanging out there for weeks or months at a time takes a toll that you can only appreciate if you’ve been through it. At this point, it’s not clear to me whether short-sales are more stressful for the seller or the buyer – at least the seller knows his fate and it’s only a matter of how long they get to live there without paying any mortgage or rent.

The buyer, on the other hand, basically gets their life put on hold with no assurance that the bank will ever respond. I think it’s safe to say that once you’ve been through this process and ended up with nothing at the end of it, you’ll never make an offer on a short sale again.