I've been in front of the appraisal board before and it's tough to come out without licking some wounds. 

It's time to lick wounds and look for flip #2. 

You don’t want a wounded ego.

I believe a more incremental approach is best - start small, mistakes may be made - but as long as they are not mortal wounds, one gains experience and knowledge.Maybe find a partner to help share the risk.Or perhaps just make part of the deposit non-refundable.Stand firm and be prepared to walk away from the deal if terms your are comfortable can’t be worked out.

This similar situation is how I wound up buying the house next to me.

I pushed the sellers to contact the City to square up and wound up having to negotiate directly with the City on what repairs would be required for them to issue me a COO after the sale.

Any help wound be much appreciated. 

We were of the mind that we'd hang on to places forever, but the ones we've sold and rolled into new purchases wound up being extraordinary moves for us.  

We wound up replacing the carpet upstairs in our home with LVP before we moved in and have been happy with it, we wound up choosing a Shaw product.

We wound up renting one of them for a year to hedge the risk- and the other has zero bookings for next year.