Journey to Gestalt

I think I have to give up on my favorite of the houses I looked at, because I can't wait up to 4 - 6 months for closing. :(
Found out only last week that the house in question is up for what's known as "short sale," and did some research to find out what that means - it hasn't been foreclosed on yet, but the owners are behind on payments and are trying to sell it for less than they still owe and hoping that their lender will settle for what they can get. The catch to this is that the lender (or lenders, if they took out a second mortgage or equity loan on the property) have to agree to each step in the process, which can drag the process out to ridiculous lengths. The lender(s) can apparently also veto any offer at any point in the process, even if the seller accepts it.

My buyer's agent has already admitted he's never handled a short sale in his 20+ year career, so I don't think he could magically whisk me through it and get me the house I really want in short order.

I could wish the information had come out before I got a little too emotionally invested in that property. As it is, unless I get a lucky lottery ticket tonight, I think it's time to change focus over to the second-choice house. Which is still a quite nice house, it's just a little less privacy and not what I had kind of gotten my heart set on.

So yeah, I've been alternately stressing out about that, and doing mindless stuff to try to NOT think about it. Oh yeah, and some stressing about the local SF con play, but that's done now and went over pretty well. One thing off the worry-list, at least. Now I need to catch up on a LOT of stuff that I let fall off the radar. *facepalm*