In Sonoma County, "contingent" status means the property is in escrow but still contingent on buyer inspections and usually a final loan approval. Our listings are changed to "pending" status once the contingencies have been removed and it will stay "pending" until the home closes escrow and is marked "sold."

Marsha,
Contingencies are specific tasks that are requires to be performed/satisfied by the agreed deadline for the agreement to be executed. Examples: financing, insurance, inspection, etc.

It is the fulfillment of certain conditions. Usually the less contingencies a real estate deal has, the faster and more likely it is to close.

Hi Marsha, Contengent means that the property has an accepted offer on it i.e. a buyer has said that they wish to purchase the house for X amount of $$'s in a certain time frame and the seller has agreed to the buyers proposal. All of these decisions must be in writing and an escrow is opened for the property and the parties involved. Being in the contingent status once escrow has been opened means that the buyer has a specific amount of time (as agreed upon in the contract) to do all sorts of inspections on the property as well as an appraisal and their lender will go thru the motions to determine that they can actully lend on the property and to the buyer. During this period of time (usually a couple of weeks +/-) the buyer determines whether he/she wishes to move forward in the purchase once all the findings from the inspections and investigations are complete. It's basically a fact finding time. The buyer will need to either remove their contingencies also known as conditions by the end of the contingency time period or remove themselves from the transaction. If the buyer removes themself from the transaction the property usually goes back on the market as Active and fully available. If the buyer removes their contingencies then the property goes into a Pending status and continues in escrow and eventually transfers ownership to the buyer.

Most times a contingent property is still able to be shown to other prospective purchasers and they can write an offer to be considered as a back up offer should the buyer who is in escrow decide to not purchase the property. Occasionally you will find a seller that is not interested in continuing to show their property once in escrow which in my mind is a silly thing to do but we won't go there now as that is another conversation.

Sometimes you will see a listing indicating Contingent Release and this means the same as Contingent but that the buyer has a property that he/she needs to sell in order to purchase this property. In that case it is still available to show and write offers on. If an acceptable offer is written on it the seller will inform the buyer that that has happened and the buyer then has a specified amount of time to decide whether or not they are willing to remove the contingency to sell their own propety and move forward in the transaction or back out and allow the person without a property to sell to move into contract. I know it can be quite confusing but I do hope that some of this has helped to explain the situation.

Its a condition, i.e. for the bank to give you the loan for the purchase of a house, the house has to appraise to the purchase price. So, the loan is contingent on the property appraising to the purchase price.
The same can be with the physical condition of a house, you offer to buy a house contingent an inspection, depending on the findings you agree to move forward with the purchase or withdraw from the contract as long as you are with in the investigations period. Hope this helps!

Maria Barraza
Smart Real Estate Services
MariaBarraza@Smart-RealEstateServices.com
707 246 1388

Marsha,

When a property shows as 'contingent,' it means that an offer has been accepted and that the buyer is in the process of inspections and lining up their financing. It also might mean the buyer has a house to sell, but that is a less common contingency. It also usually means the home can continue to be shown to other possible buyers for the position of back-up offer if another buyer is interested, and in case the first buyer falters. There are timeframes for these contingencies and without speaking to the listing agent for the property it's not possible to know exactly how long the timeframes are. Hope the answer is useful.

Susan Bryer