Selling your house first before having another house purchase finalized nor a rental lined up is a really bad move. You've put yourself in a position of desperation and neediness and the realtors are reading your desperation on your face like a book. They see it as a way to please their primary customers (the seller), and screw you over hard by raising the price.

You've put yourself in the obvious desperate position and it shows on your face and the world looks harsher to you now, it really is because you're broadcasting your foolishness to them. You might as well be pouring a gallon of blood into the shark tank, you are food and the predators are hungry. The realtors see you as between a rock and a hard place and see you for the bibilical-defined fool that you are, and are going to require you meet inflated prices then jump through hoops to because they know you can't say no.

Rent to regroup. This is a personality defect you can't fix in a few months, you need a few years minimum. When buying a house the buyer must always always always be dealing from the position of strength and must have the ability to walk out when the deal goes bad. Read chapters 1 and 2 of Trump's art of the deal. He turned a personal loan of 2 million dollars into 4 billion over his career through real estate, and you're breaking half of his rules.

Sounds like your wife is a bit of a ball breaker by pushing you to get on this hook, your marriage is in Jeopardy. Just rent, against your wife's protest, and visit r/theredpill to get yourself up to speed on why you're in this mess to begin with. You need to lead your family to right outcomes, or else nobody else will and you will be taken for all you have.