A question that gets asked frequently by sellers is, “once I have accepted an offer on my property, can I continue to market the property and accept other offers?”
This depends where you’re at in the country, but here in Maryland and Delaware, our multiple listing service has two categories for a seller once they’ve accepted an offer.
Difference Between Pending and Active Under Contract
The first category is Pending status. If it’s pending, then there are no contingencies, and that transaction is moving forward to settlement.
There’s also another category called Active Under Contract. In this case, the seller has accepted an offer but there are contingencies in that offer.
While they’re working through the contingencies, we could continue to market the property. In the event that another offer comes in after the seller has accepted one, the second offer—even if it’s higher or has better terms—is going to be a backup offer to the offer that is currently signed and is in the first position.
So, the benefit in that category is that we can continue to market it. We could take backup offers if anything happened to the first offer but you are still going to work with the offer that is accepted (offer number one) and work through all those contingencies. If everything is met, then go to the settlement table.