Probate & Estate

October 19, 2026 By Krista Recker

Last updated: October 19, 2026
FRESHNESS: evergreen (one dated contract-cancellation stat cluster)

BUYER EDUCATION

What Does "Under Agreement" Mean in Massachusetts? Contingent vs. Pending vs. Under Agreement Explained (2026 Quincy Guide)

October 19, 2026 | By Krista Recker

For a Quincy property listed in MLS PIN, the multiple listing service most Greater Boston brokerages use, "under agreement" means the seller and a buyer have executed and delivered a written agreement to sell, and the listing is classified as off market. "Contingent" means the same agreement exists, but the seller has signed a form asking to keep the listing visible and showable for backup offers while the buyer's inspection, financing, appraisal, attorney review, or purchase and sale agreement is still open. "Pending" is not the MLS PIN status used for either of those situations. It is the label Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.com apply when they display those listings on their own sites, and the sites do not all apply it the same way.

That is the short version. The longer version matters if you are a buyer who just watched the house you wanted flip to "pending" on Zillow, or a seller trying to decide what status your agent should pick after you accept an offer. I am a real estate salesperson in Quincy, I work inside MLS PIN every day, and this post explains what each status means under the MLS PIN rules, how the consumer sites relabel them, what you can and cannot do about a house in each status, and how often these deals come back on the market.

Who this applies to

This post is for you if any of these describes your situation:

• You are a buyer in Quincy or the South Shore and a house you liked now shows "contingent," "pending," or "under agreement," and you want to know whether it is worth pursuing.
• You are about to accept an offer on your Quincy home and your agent asked whether you want the listing marked contingent or under agreement.
• You saw a listing flip to "back on market" and you want to know whether that is a warning sign or an opening.
• You are tracking a neighborhood's inventory and cannot tell from the portal labels which homes are truly available.
• You are an investor watching for deals that fall apart, and you want to know how the MLS timing actually works.

What does "under agreement" mean in Massachusetts?

Under agreement, abbreviated UAG in MLS PIN, means the seller and a buyer have executed and delivered what the MLS PIN rules call a "Bilateral Agreement," and the listing is classified as off market for all purposes. The rules define a Bilateral Agreement as a purchase and sale agreement executed and delivered by both sides, or, if it comes earlier, a written bilateral offer to purchase. In Massachusetts the signed offer almost always comes first, so under the rules a listing can qualify as under agreement from the day the offer is executed and delivered, not only once the purchase and sale agreement is signed a week or two later.

In practice, many agents in Greater Boston reserve under agreement for the point when the purchase and sale agreement is signed and use contingent in the gap between accepted offer and P&S. Both approaches exist on the same MLS, and that inconsistency is part of why the labels confuse people. Two things to keep separate: the MLS status is a classification for marketing purposes, and whether the parties are legally bound is a question about the documents they signed, not the status code. What you can rely on is that an under agreement listing is not being actively marketed, showings have usually stopped, and the listing broker is required to file the status change within 24 hours of the executed agreement, excluding weekends and holidays, so the status you see in MLS PIN is usually current to within a business day.

What does "contingent" mean in MLS PIN?

Contingent, abbreviated CTG, means the seller has accepted an offer, but the seller and listing broker have signed a Contingent Status Request Form asking MLS PIN to keep the listing visible and available for backup offers while one or more named contingencies are still open. In the published guidance the qualifying contingencies are inspection, attorney review, appraisal, financing, third party approval (short sales and some estate or relocation sales), and pending purchase and sale agreement.

Two things about contingent status are different from what most buyers assume. First, under the MLS PIN rules a listing broker with a contingent listing is supposed to "diligently and in good faith continue to show the Listing and seek back up offers for it." Contingent is an on-market status by design, though the rule obligates the broker to keep showing in good faith; it does not guarantee you a specific appointment. Second, it has a clock. A contingent listing stays contingent for a 14 day period from the status change, and unless the listing broker extends it for another 14 day period before the current one runs out, the system automatically changes it to under agreement. The 14 day rule was adopted because, according to a 2016 explanation published by a flat fee listing service that works in the system, roughly a quarter of the "active" inventory in MLS PIN at the time was sitting in contingent status with nobody showing it. An extended contingent period does not by itself establish a problem with the deal. A financing contingency can stay open through an ordinary closing timeline, and repeated extensions set the status duration, not the transaction's risk. If you see a Quincy listing that has been contingent for six weeks, ask which contingency remains open, its deadline, and whether showings and backup offers are still being accommodated.

What is the difference between contingent, under agreement, and pending?

The difference is who is using the word. Contingent and under agreement are MLS PIN statuses with written definitions. Pending is a label that the consumer sites apply on top of those statuses, and each site has its own translation table that can change without notice. Other MLS systems and brokerages may use different vocabulary altogether.

Term	Where you see it	What it means for a Quincy listing in MLS PIN	Can you still see the house and make an offer?
Active (ACT)	MLS PIN and every portal	Being marketed for offers. Either no accepted agreement is on file, or a kick-out clause is the only contingency and the seller filed an Active Status Request Form to keep taking offers.	Yes. If a kick-out arrangement is disclosed, ask the listing broker and your attorney how it affects your offer.
Contingent (CTG)	MLS PIN; shown as "contingent," "pending," or "active contingent" on portals depending on the site	Seller accepted an offer and signed a Contingent Status Request Form so the listing stays showable for backup offers while inspection, financing, appraisal, attorney review, third party approval, or the P&S is still open. Converts to under agreement at the end of each 14 day period unless extended.	Yes. The listing broker is required under MLS PIN rules to keep showing it in good faith and to present your written backup offer to the seller.
Under Agreement (UAG)	MLS PIN; shown as "pending" on most portals	Seller and buyer executed and delivered a written offer or a purchase and sale agreement and the seller did not ask to keep the listing open. Classified as off market for all purposes.	Usually no showings. The listing broker still has to submit any written offer to the seller before closing unless the seller has agreed otherwise in writing, but you are offering on a house that is not being marketed.
Back on Market (BOM)	MLS PIN; portals revert to "for sale"	An under agreement or contingent deal was cancelled and the listing has been reinstated. MLS PIN rules require the broker to file the cancellation immediately. Local status guides describe BOM as displaying for 3 days before the listing reads as active again.	Yes. Ask what happened before you write, and expect that the days on market count did not reset.
Pending	Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Trulia	A portal's label for a listing that MLS PIN shows as contingent or under agreement. Redfin's help page defines pending as all contingencies satisfied or waived, which is a general consumer definition, not a verified description of how it maps MLS PIN statuses.	Check the MLS PIN status through an agent with MLS PIN access before you decide. The portal label alone does not tell you whether backups are being taken.
Coming Soon (CSO)	MLS PIN and the portals that display it	Filed in the system but off market for up to 21 days under a Coming Soon Listing Form signed by the seller. No showings during the coming soon period.	Not yet. Confirm the actual first showing date, because MLS PIN also permits a separately documented showing deferral after the coming soon period ends, within an overall 21 day limit from filing. You can line up your pre-approval in the meantime.

The practical takeaway is that a portal's "pending" tells you an offer was accepted and nothing else. A 2016 explanation from a Massachusetts flat fee listing service, which I am citing as historical rather than as a current mapping, reported that Zillow and Redfin displayed MLS PIN contingent listings as pending while Realtor.com displayed them as contingent, and I have watched the same Quincy listing read three different ways across three apps in the same afternoon. The MLS PIN status, which an agent with MLS PIN access can pull up in a few seconds, is the one that carries a definition.

Why does Zillow say "pending" when the MLS says "contingent"?

Because the portals built their status vocabulary nationally, and MLS PIN's two-status system does not map cleanly onto it. Zillow's own learning center defines contingent as "the seller has accepted the offer, but certain conditions must be met" and pending as "the seller has accepted the offer with no outstanding contingencies," which is a reasonable general definition. MLS PIN does not sort listings that way. Here, a house that is under agreement in MLS PIN can still have an open mortgage contingency for another three or four weeks, and it will show as pending on Zillow the whole time. A house that is contingent in MLS PIN can have nothing open but the signing of the P&S, and it may still show as contingent or pending depending on which app you open.

The portals also lag. MLS PIN requires the status change to be filed within 24 hours of the executed agreement, excluding weekends and holidays, and the portals pull from the MLS feed on their own schedule after that. A house that went under agreement on a Friday evening can show as active on a portal through the weekend. If you are serious about a property, the status check is a phone call to an agent, not a refresh of the app.

Can you still make an offer on a house that is contingent or under agreement in Massachusetts?

Yes on contingent, and technically yes on under agreement, but the two situations are very different. On a contingent listing, the seller has told MLS PIN in writing that they want backup offers, the listing broker is obligated to keep showing the property in good faith, and your written offer must be presented to the seller. A backup offer in Massachusetts is normally written as an offer to purchase that is expressly conditioned on the termination of the existing agreement, so the backup buyer's right to proceed depends on the first agreement ending rather than creating conflicting obligations to convey the same property. The MLS PIN rules go out of their way on this point: unless a later offer is contingent on the termination or expiration of the existing contract, the listing broker is required to recommend that the seller get legal advice before accepting it.

On an under agreement listing, the seller has stopped marketing the house. Under MLS PIN rules the listing broker is still required to submit any written offer received before closing to the seller, unless excused by law or the seller has agreed otherwise in writing, so a strong backup can land on the seller's desk. What it cannot do is force the seller out of an existing agreement. A signed Massachusetts offer can itself create binding obligations before the P&S is signed, and the Supreme Judicial Court has enforced an accepted offer with specific performance (McCarthy v. Tobin, 429 Mass. 84, 1999), so a seller who abandons an executed agreement to take a higher number is inviting a lawsuit. A backup on an under agreement house pays off only if the first deal ends on its own.

Here is how I handle a backup offer with a Quincy buyer:

1. Confirm the real MLS PIN status and ask the listing agent directly which contingencies are still open and when each one expires. The answer tells you whether a backup has any realistic chance.
2. Write the backup as a complete offer, with a pre-approval and a deposit check ready, so that if the first deal collapses you are the obvious next call rather than one of several people who "expressed interest."
3. Make the backup expressly contingent on the first agreement terminating, with a date by which the seller must notify you, so you are not stuck waiting on a house you cannot buy.
4. Keep looking, but understand your backup agreement before making another commitment. A signed backup offer can create contractual obligations. Have a Massachusetts real estate attorney address when it becomes effective, how the deposit is handled, the contingency deadlines, the notice requirements, and whether and how you may withdraw.

How often do under agreement homes come back on the market?

Redfin reported a seasonally adjusted contract cancellation share of 10.9% for its Boston market in July 2026, compared with 14% nationally, in a report published August 21, 2026. Boston's figure was up 1.7 percentage points from a year earlier, and Redfin described the national figure as the highest share in nearly three years, with the national rate having moved between roughly 13% and 14% for the past four years. This is a regional market indicator, not a Quincy specific statistic and not the probability that any particular accepted offer will fail. Redfin notes that contracts cancelled during July did not necessarily go under contract that month, so the figure cannot be converted into a closing rate for July's offers, and it does not separate MLS PIN contingent listings from under agreement listings.

Figures checked against Redfin's July 2026 contract cancellation report, published August 21, 2026, in October 2026.

What that means for a Quincy buyer watching a contingent listing: most accepted offers in the region do close, and the ones that do not most often end at inspection, appraisal, or financing, which are the same contingencies that keep a listing in contingent status in the first place. A backup has its best odds while those contingencies are still open and the P&S has not yet been signed, which is exactly the window contingent status is designed for.

For a seller, the same figure is the argument for taking backups. If the listing is contingent rather than under agreement, a backup buyer who was already through the house can step in within days of a collapse, instead of starting the whole process over with a relisting.

What does "back on market" mean and is it a red flag?

Back on market, abbreviated BOM, means a contingent or under agreement listing had its deal cancelled and the listing broker reinstated it. MLS PIN rules require the broker to file the cancellation immediately, and local status guides describe the listing displaying as BOM for 3 days before it reverts to active. It is not automatically a red flag. A deal can end because the buyer's financing fell through, because the buyer's own house did not sell, because the appraisal came in low in a way the buyer could not cover, or because the buyer simply got cold feet. It can also end because the inspection found something, which is the scenario everyone assumes.

The right move is to ask. Call the listing agent, or have your agent call, and ask what the listing broker can disclose about the cancellation and whether any inspection information or repair documentation is available. The listing broker is not obligated to share the previous buyer's inspection report or every detail of that transaction, and an explanation or a prior report is not a substitute for your own inspection. If the answer is financing or the buyer's sale, that explanation does not by itself establish a property defect, and it does not establish that the property has none. It may mean you are looking at a seller who is more flexible than they were the first time around.

One more thing about back on market listings: the days on market count usually does not reset. MLS PIN's own public FAQ describes a cumulative days on market policy under which prior market time carries into a new listing of the same property unless the property spent at least 60 full uninterrupted days in an off market status such as withdrawn, expired, or cancelled. A sold listing is the exception and resets immediately. So a Quincy house that was active for 20 days, under agreement for 30, and then came back will show its cumulative history to any agent who looks, and the "pending for a month" chapter is visible to every buyer's agent in the market. That history is information, not a verdict, and it is one reason sellers should think carefully before choosing under agreement over contingent on a deal with several open contingencies.

How long does a house stay under agreement before it closes in Massachusetts?

The accepted offer and the purchase and sale agreement set the deadlines, and there is no Massachusetts legal requirement for how long the stretch takes. As an illustration of the common sequence, not a rule: the offer is accepted, a purchase and sale agreement is often negotiated and signed within about 10 to 14 days, a mortgage contingency date is commonly negotiated for 3 to 4 weeks after the P&S, and a closing is commonly set 30 to 60 days after the P&S. Add those up and a financed Quincy purchase often runs somewhere between six and eleven weeks from accepted offer to recorded deed. Cash purchases can be faster when title, the municipal lien certificate, the smoke and carbon monoxide certificate, and any condo documents are ready, and title, financing, probate, construction, or other issues can stretch the schedule well past it.

During that period the listing may remain contingent or move to under agreement, depending on the seller's instructions and the MLS PIN requirements described above, and the portals will generally show pending either way. If a listing stays pending for an unusually long time, Redfin's status glossary flags it separately as "pending, over 4 months." That is a duration label, not a diagnosis; Redfin's own writing lists delayed construction and longer processing among the reasons, and an agent who never updated the listing after it closed is another. In MLS PIN the sold status is supposed to be filed within 24 hours of the deed recording at the Norfolk County Registry of Deeds, excluding weekends and holidays, so a listing that sits under agreement for months past its expected closing is worth a question, not a conclusion.

Should a seller choose contingent or under agreement after accepting an offer?

If you have more than one serious buyer and your accepted offer carries an inspection, financing, or appraisal contingency, contingent status is usually the better choice, because it keeps a backup buyer warm without costing you anything. If you have one buyer whose offer has few open contingencies and you do not want showings in your house for another six weeks, under agreement is the simpler choice. The decision comes down to how much you value a ready backup against the inconvenience of continued showings.

The case for contingent is strongest in the gap between accepted offer and signed P&S, because that is when inspection findings most often send a buyer away. Initial and additional deposits are negotiated; in my experience the initial deposit with the offer is often $1,000, with a larger deposit at the P&S, but the amount deposited does not define either party's exposure. A signed offer can be binding before the P&S, and the consequences of a termination depend on the contract, the applicable contingencies, and the circumstances. If your listing is already contingent, a buyer who toured during that window can step in within days. If your listing is under agreement, your agent is calling people who saw the house a month ago and asking whether they are still looking.

One Massachusetts rule belongs in this conversation. Massachusetts home inspection protections (760 CMR 74.00) apply to most ordinary arm's length residential resales with agreements first executed after October 15, 2025. A seller or the seller's agent cannot condition acceptance of an offer on the buyer waiving, limiting, or restricting a home inspection, and cannot accept an offer after being informed beforehand that the buyer intends to waive inspection. The listing agent, or the seller if there is none, gives a separate written disclosure no later than the first written contract, and a buyer may independently decide not to inspect only after acceptance and after receiving that disclosure, without influence from the seller or the seller's agent. Reasonable negotiated inspection timing and terms are still allowed, and certain transfers (related party, divorce, foreclosure, some estate planning transfers, qualifying new construction, and auctions) are excluded. So when you compare offers, "few open contingencies" cannot mean an inspection waiver you solicited or rewarded; it means financing strength, appraisal gap coverage, deposit size, and timing.

Two cautions. First, your listing broker has to actually do the work. Under MLS PIN rules a contingent listing must continue to be shown and marketed in good faith, and a contingent listing nobody can get into is the exact misuse the 14 day auto-conversion was written to stop. Second, your buyer may not love it. Some buyers' agents ask for under agreement status as a term of the offer, because a visible backup line weakens the buyer's position in any post-inspection negotiation. That request is negotiable like any other, and in a multiple offer situation it is one more term you can weigh against price and deposit.

The Bottom Line

Under agreement and contingent are the two MLS PIN statuses that mean a Quincy seller has accepted an offer. Under agreement means the listing is classified as off market, showings have usually stopped, and the seller is not looking for another buyer. Contingent means the seller signed a form asking to keep showing the house for backup offers while named contingencies are open, and the status converts to under agreement at the end of each 14 day period unless the agent extends it. Pending is not the MLS PIN status for either; it is the label the portals apply to both, and it will not tell you whether backups are welcome. Redfin's regional data put Boston area contract cancellations at 10.9% in July 2026, so a well written backup offer is a reasonable move on a contingent listing and a long shot on an under agreement one. And a back on market listing is a question to ask, not a conclusion to draw.