What Under Contract Means When You're the Seller

Decide If Your Home Stays on the Market After You Accept

Once you accept an offer, decide whether buyers can still find your home.

The Real Estate Standards Organization's Data Dictionary sets standard terms for exchanging real estate data. It gives an accepted offer two statuses. Active Under Contract means accepted, still on the market. Pending means accepted, off the market.

Labels differ by MLS. The standard lists Contingent and Accepting Backup Offers as other names for Active Under Contract, and it files Under Contract and Offer Accepted under Pending. So a home marked Under Contract can already be off the market.

If you want backup offers, ask your listing agent which status your MLS uses and what buyers will see. Florida's AS IS contract, the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar form, has a check box for a Back-up Contract rider. That's Rider W.

Our view: offers are the market's vote on your price, and a backup offer is one more vote even if you never use it.

Count the Sale as Done Only When It Closes

Decide which of your plans wait for the closing, like a deposit on your next home.

Signing isn't closing. The National Association of Realtors says a sale is listed as pending when the contract's been signed but the deal hasn't closed. The gap varies. NAR says trouble with the buyer's mortgage can drag it out, and so can problems with the home inspection or the appraisal.

In NAR's August 2026 survey of Realtors, contracts typically closed in 30 days. Some ran late. The same Realtors reported delayed closings on 14% of their contracts over the past three months.

Our view: the day that counts is closing day. Not signing day.

Pick the Contract You Want to Be Under

You want a sale that closes on a date you can plan around. So before you sign, read what the contract says happens if the buyer's financing falls through.

Cash Flow Deals gives you the Fast Cash Offer and the Premium Cash Offer together, and you choose. With the Fast Cash Offer, we buy your house as-is and close. You have one walk-through by our team, an inspection period of 15 business days, and no repairs for you to make.

With the Premium Cash Offer, a pre-approved FHA or conventional buyer we already have, ready to go, pays more and buys directly from you. You sign with us first at an agreed number and give us permission to bring in a buyer in our place. Any buyer visit is arranged with you ahead of time and takes 10 to 15 minutes. The buyer signs a new contract directly with you, their lender funds the purchase, and title transfers once, directly from you to them. We're paid as a separate line item on the closing statement.

We cover repair costs, and we figure out a way, so nothing comes out of your pocket. On Premium, only what the buyer's lender requires gets fixed, with repair costs settled from the sale proceeds out of our share. With Fast Cash, we buy as-is.

For either offer, the number is agreed before any work starts, and it changes only if you agree. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens.

If the Premium buyer's loan falls through, that is our problem, not yours, and you can still take the Fast Cash Offer at its own number. You can compare that Fast Cash Offer with the Premium Cash Offer before deciding.

Our existing closing statement is 45 days or less. Read the written timing for the offer you choose; you help pick the date.

The higher Premium number comes from a buyer purchasing a home directly from you with FHA or conventional financing.