I feel like I'm seeing all varieties of homes from "Three Little Pigs"

We saw seven homes w/ our realtor today.
Some people should be slapped for the price they're asking, considering the location and the condition. And we seriously have to STOP seeing homes out of our price range. I don't care if it's only 20k ... it's still 20k!!!! If I don't have it in my back pocket, it's too much to ask on top of our price range.
Oh, what a trying process. I mean, truly, trying to find a home tries my patience. And let me just add that EVERY decent house seems to be a short sale. I HATE A SHORT SALE! It makes no kind of sense. The seller is trying to prevent foreclosure so the seller has a short sale and offers the home for a price lower than what he/she had paid for said house. Of course, because the home is now being offered at a great deal, there are buyers (enter poor young couple like yours truly and The Man.) But ohhh nooo! Just because we are willing to pay the price, doesn't mean that the seller's lender is willing to take the price that the seller offered. So there goes that.
Seems ass backwards to me. Why doesn't the bank just tell the Seller what is the lowest price they're willing to take and then let the Seller try to sell it? I know, the market fluctuates, depends on the person handling the short sale, yadda yadda yadda. Truthfully, it's a bunch of Piko/Pili crap. It stinks, it's messy and it puts me in a bad mood!
But I can finally understand what I couldn't understand before. You homeowners have told me how you ended up with your 4th, 5th, or 6th choice and I couldn't understand how you could get past your first choice. Now I get it. You just have to harden your heart and not fall in love with property. Because that kind of love gets you nothing but heart ache. The house sure has heck doesn't love you back. And the sellers, their realtor and their lender could give two hoots if you love the house. So why go through that kind of pain? We've gotten to point where we have decided that if the place is the kind of home we see ourselves growing old in - fantastic. But if we can only see ourselves there for five years and then selling it for a profit to buy what will hopefully be our forever home - that is just dandy, too.