After this rant from six weeks ago about what, at the time, was characterized as our unsuccessful attempt to purchase a short sale property here in Bozeman, Montana, it will surely come as a surprise to most of you to learn that, while we were on vacation over the last month, the deal somehow came back to life and it is now done.

We closed two days ago.

Five-and-a-half months after we made the offer.

Now, the reason for not saying anything about this until today is that, up until the very end, we really weren’t sure that the deal would get done.

Any of you who have been involved as a buyer in a short sale surely know that there are many twists and turns along the way to a 50-50 chance (at best) of actually completing the sale and, just when you think you’ve got a clear shot to the goal line, something comes up that either nixes the deal or sets it back by a couple months.

In recent weeks, we again had more painful waits for the bank to respond with final approval letters and there were thousands of dollars in closing costs that we thought sure they would try to stick us with and some repairs that were sorely needed, none of which we ended up having to pay for.

It’s as if the short sale gods smiled upon us.

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