The term "Contingent House Listing" is not known by many that are involved in the real estate industry. What does that term exactly mean? Should you worry about it as a buyer or totally disregard it at all?

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Facts about Contingent House Listing

According to Point2Homes.com, this term is usually encountered by most real estate buyers. The said term means that the seller of the property the buyer wishes to purchase has accepted a different offer beforehand. This might seem that the buyer has no chance of getting the property in question, but there is still a chance for that buyer.

Do take note that there are several steps for a seller to be able to successfully close a real estate deal from their end. The common steps a seller must successfully meet are listed below:

  • Various and numerous home inspections
  • Successful mortgage approvals
  • Successful appraisals 

While the seller hasn't yet met those said steps (and possibly others), the sale of the real estate property cannot be closed. Therefore, it is possible for the seller to receive other buying offers from a different buyer than the original one. Likewise, a seller can willingly accept a new buying offer from their end, and if they have liked a different but better order, they can drop the original offer first for the new one.

Now, you might be wondering what is the difference between this real estate term from the other commonly used term named "pending". As for that, the real estate term of "pending" means that it is the next phase of the "contingent" term, wherein all of the necessary steps for closing the deal have been already met. In that phase of the deal, involved parties are just waiting for the legal documents needed to fully close the deal. At this point, the sale is essentially closed and is not open anymore for additional offers. 

Types of Contingent House Listing 

When it comes to the several types of Contingent House Listing statuses, there are a few types that one should know if they are planning to buy a real estate property in the near future. According to Quicken Loans, listed below are those said types of Contingent House Listing statuses:

  1. Contingent - Continue to Show (CCS) - this kind of listing status means that there are multiple contingencies that a seller must first deal with, even though he/she has accepted an offer from a buyer.
  2. Contingent - No Show - this status means that a seller will no longer accept other offers from other potential buyers and instead have accepted the first offer with its own contingencies.
  3. Contingent - With Kick-Out - this status means that the seller has given the buyer a deadline to meet their listing. While waiting for the buyer to meet the needs of their listing, the seller can still offer their listing to others.
  4. Contingent - Without Kick-Out - the opposite of the previous status, this instead means that the buyer has no deadline to meet when trying to close a deal with a seller. However, on the seller's side, they cannot accept any other offers even if the other offer is better than the first one they have accepted.
  5. Short Sale Contingent - this status only happens when a seller has accepted a buyer's lower offer of purchase while accepting at the same time the amount still owed to the mortgage. 
  6. Contingent Probate - this status only occurs when a real estate in question involves the death of a person part of the listing, like for example the seller themselves.

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