Congratulations, you’ve received an offer on your seller’s listing!  Now what?  Do you leave it active in the MLS with a contingency flag or do you place it under a pending status?  Not sure, here’s the rule:

First, all executed offers must be disclosed in the MLS.  It’s part of our rules and regulations, Code of Ethics, and also falls under the guise of truth in advertising.  You have options, but either way, within 2 business days of the offer being fully executed, you must report the status change.

Question:  Is the Seller continuing to show the property?

Yes:  Leave the status as active and add a contingency ‘flag’.  This will allow the listing to come up in search results and show on IDX searches (property searches on agents’ and firms’ websites).  However, the listing will display as pending on syndication sites such as, Realtor.com and Zillow.

No:  Mark it as Pending

Pretty simple.  The only caveat to this policy is if there is a home sale contingency included in the offer.  If, and only if, this is the case the listing can remain active without a contingency ‘flag’ BUT there must be a disclosure of the home sale contingency in the REALTOR-TO-REALTOR remarks on the MLS.

Please remember, your seller cannot direct you to violate rules and regulations, the code of ethics or license law – all of which this practice falls under.  Please read our previous post.