“They pissed away $16,000 trying to make $10,000,” says Douglas Rill, a Century 21 real estate broker in West Palm Beach, Florida.

He was representing a seller for a one-bed, one-bath townhouse listed at $195,000. He had one interested buyer who put in a low-ball offer at $165,000 and, after some back-and-forth, they had a handshake agreement for $175,000.

But as Rill was preparing the paperwork, the seller changed their mind. They needed $185,000. The buyer walked away and the property sat on the market for eight months, costing the seller $2,000 a month to hold.

“We lost the whole deal over $10,000,” Rill laments.

Rill is seeing situations like these more and more as sellers are forced to adjust their expectations and remove their egos from transactions in a post-pandemic housing world.…