If you are a buying a short sale property what can you expect? Well the first thing you can expect is to spend a lot of time waiting, if you need to move fast then short sale properties are probably not the way to go.

Depending upon at what stage you join the process, you can be waiting anything from a few weeks to several months. Even though you can be waiting for a long time, when the bank does decide to move they tend to move fast, so once they have made their decision be prepared to move fast.

The other thing you can expect is to be competing with other buyers. Because short sale properties have a tendency to be aggressively priced, they can attract several offers. Therefore, you may make an offer, wait for several months, and still not get the property. The other thing about short sales is that they are nearly always sold as is. Banks do not want the hassle or liability of having to fix problems found by a home inspection, so if you know there are problems do not expect them to be fixed by either the seller or the bank.