Hang in there Tillers. I think that your observations are pretty astute for someone who is seriously looking. As a few other posters commented, a few months is not long in real estate years with regards to looking. I think that my clients on average take about a year or so. Many buyers often cycle as well. They go hard for awhile, then lay off it when they burn out. Don’t kill yourself, keep your eyes open but dont grind to hard or you will burn out. Take needed breaks.
The price range is annoying. You have to love the big price range listings where the sellers have absolutely no intent on selling at the low end of the range. Quite frustrating but you should come to expect that behavior, especially if the home has only been on the market a short period of time. Now if the home has been on the market a few months then that may be another story. In most all those cases the listing agent knows the listed price is not realistic but to get the listing and appease the seller they go along with it with hopes that eventually the seller will come to their senses and lower the price.
As you have also learned there are many buyers out there who simply will pay more for what are overpriced homes. So yes the homes are overpriced but from a supply/demand perspective they are being bought. Buyers will drive the market and not the other way around. It is REALLY frustrating for buyers who are trying to keep things in perspective.
As for short sales I understand your frustrations but I am not sure I would write them off altogether. I think that you should keep them as low probability events. Look, what harm is it to throw an offer at a short sale? As long as you treat it like a fire and forget exercise there really is no problem is there? You can send in short sale offers all over the place and keep looking for homes. In a market that is constrained by quality supply, throwing out what is obviously a non trivial segment of that supply may be limiting yourself. Just never get your hopes up.
It is a frustrating experience. I have some clients who are on multi-year searches. Try to take it in stride, there is certainly no reason to rush given the direction of the market.
