anyone bought a house in short sale?

It takes a long time, but if you can make it work you can actually get a really good deal.

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what were the pros and cons?

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Prepare for the listing agent to be a clueless incompetent when it comes to short sales. They all think they can do them, but they are woefully unprepared. There was a very nice short sale down the street from me that was a "pre-approved" short sale. I went in to look at it. I spoke to the agent about the "pre-approval". I had already done my research and I knew there was a 2nd lien, so I asked her - "the 2nd lien has signed off on this 'pre-approval'"? Her answer: "oh, the 2nd won't get anything" - as if somehow that meant the 2nd was just going to go away. I told her the price was stupid and also the idea the the 2nd was going to sign off was stupid also.

The upshot? The thing ended up going to foreclosure auction because the 2nd wouldn't sign off. It failed at auction and eventually came back on the market as REO, where it sold for $100K less than the "pre-approved" short sale amount.

This is only one example. I finally found a really smart and competent agent who understands distressed situations from every one of the players' perspectives, and he runs circles around these idiot listing agents. Actually, he has to do their job for them. There's one I'm looking at really hard that came on "pre approved" at $850K. My guy did a little bit of research and found several issues and now has the listing agent begging us to put in an offer at $699K. His qualifications to do short sales? He took a class one weekend.