The Pitfalls of shopping for a new home in todays market!

Today like any other day I started out filling out my "to do list" which because I was up late last night working, it is short:) So, I decided it was time to write something here. If you are a home buyer this may interest you or if you are someone interested in listing your home this may also interest you. But keep in mind there are areas of the state (Michigan) that this won't apply too.
Looking at GRAR (The Grand Rapids MLS) I see that homes are selling with a good percentage between the $100,000/$160,000 range. The problem is that most of these homes are either forclosures or short sales, both of which are distressed sales. For the month of April we had 718 distressed sales in our area out of 1141 total sales. That is almost 63% of the homes sold last month were distressed. The problem were seeing for buyers is that there are fewer and fewer homes available that are not a foreclosure or short sale. Yes, great you say for the investor, but what if you want to buy something that you don't have to put alot of work into? Most foreclosures you will have to do some work.
In my opinion we are getting to the bottom of the barrel. There are fewer options out there for the regular home buyer as normal listings are few with limited access to areas of interest. Homes that do come on the market with a good price and in good shape are snapped up quickly. This means you have to be quick as a buyer and make quick purchace decisions.
The good news for a home owner that wants to sell, is that you may have something that someone wants. Yes, prices are down, but will go up with demand. This is the start of that cycle as people are getting tired of looking through distressed properties. Not that you will get what you want out of your home, but you may come close if your in a high demand area. There is also the fact that there are fewer and fewer foreclosed properties coming on the market. This will also increase demand.
An example is that for the month 0f March in our area the distressed sales were 65%. February was 68% and January was 69% and of course April was 63%. You can see the trend here and it will continue.
So if you are a home owner and want to sell the time is right. If you are a home buyer you must be quick at your purchase and be persistant in your shopping!