I was honestly surprised, it was the buy it now price, the guy who bought it sells refurbed parts so probably has a better shot then me.
Not limited but was a galaxy, the newest one they made
I suppose they wouldn't be paying that price if they weren't confident they could fix it.
On eBay, it's hard to find people who are up front when it comes to faulty devices. They either won't say how it was damaged, just vague things like "doesn't work" or "won't power on", or they mention one fault but there are 2 other faults they don't mention. And a lot of the time it has been previously attempted to be repaired by someone skilled, which obviously lowers the chance of it being repairable. Sometimes you even run into people buying bulk lots, using the parts to repair what they can, and then putting the faulty parts together and selling them off, so whoever buys it gets a device where basically every part is faulty and it's total garbage, can't even be used for spare parts.
So that makes buying faulty devices on eBay to repair a big gamble, and it's rare to come across honest sellers like you, so I guess whenever there is a listing with an honest fault, repair techs are all over it.
Still, liquid damaged devices are a pretty big gamble. Anything can be repaired, but sometimes it's just not worth the time and money it costs. The problem with liquid damage is that you just don't know how bad the damage is and it could affect multiple areas of the system, making troubleshooting it time consuming.
But on the upside, usually it doesn't cost much in parts, chips don't tend to be damaged (although it happens), it's mainly trace damage which is repairable with wires, and some small components like resistors might need replacing, but those cost cents. Voltage regulators or anything else dealing with the power delivery can be damaged, but they are typically easily and cheaply available. Chips can be proprietary or not available directly from the manufacturer, so they would cost more to replace.
I've noticed a strong correlation between the pricing of faulty devices, and the expected cost of replacement parts. For example, if there is a console with a cracked screen and the picture shows it turned on and otherwise functioning, and replacement screens are $20, then you can expect it to go for maybe $30 less than a fully working console in similar condition, and the buyer will only make $10 from reselling it, but they can whack out multiple of them in an hour and make a business of it. That doesn't necessarily translate to all types of damage (I haven't checked), but certainly seems to be the case with cracked screens, I guess because they are easy to replace (well, not so much on smartphones)
I've had a look on eBay and seems these go for $250-300 used depending on condition, and not knowing the condition of yours, I guess taking off $70 for the labor involved in the repair (and just a couple dollars on parts) and the gross factor of it having been dropped in a toilet (and the required deep cleaning the buyer is going to do) seems fair. You might've even been able to get a little more for it from the right buyer, but $180 is not bad at all. It wouldn't be close to the price of a working console like it is with cracked screens, since it's so much more complicated to repair due to not knowing exactly where the fault (or multiple faults) is, but on the right day, and to the right buyer, maybe you could've gotten $200. Sometimes it's as simple as cleaning everything and scraping off any stubborn corrosion and it comes back to life, if you're lucky.