"Under contract" Listings

When I look through realestate.com.au, some listings come up as "Under contract".

What does this mean?

Am I wasting time looking at these listings, and should I filter them out?

 

It means the person selling (vendor) and the person purchasing have a contract in place. The property is still advertised as that contract may fall over for some reason. Finance might fall through, the purchaser might decide to forfeit their deposit and walk from the property, or who knows what else.

 

Generally. Sometimes deals fall through.

My experience with purchasing Deception Bay recently was that any listing older than 2-3 days usually already had an offer pending finance, but listing would not go 'Under Offer' until the contract goes unconditional ( typically a 10-12 day lag ).

Check listings daily and focus on those no older than 2-3 days. If you see something you like that is older, no harm in having a closer look.

Slack / unresponsive vendor agents don't help the filtering process. Takes days for them to respond with "sorry it's under offer".

 

Pending the State, I see different practices.

In QLD, most agents don't put under contract until it's gone unconditional so usually gone by then. So yes, avoid these.

Cheers,
Michael

 

These listings basically mean the Agent has a signed contract from both parties.
Which is just waiting for buyer to get unconditional finance approval from the buyers bank and a satisfactory building and pest report.
This doesn't always mean the deal will go through as at the moment I would say some deals will be affected due to finance issues,still ring the agent and let them know if the deal doesn't go through that you are interested in the property.
Also if the area you are looking at has a large % of properties "under offer" this would indicate a hot market and would make it hard to negotiate on property price.
In a hot market you need to build up a great repour with the local agents so they think of you first when they have a potential listing,or even better show you an "off the market" property..

Coota9

 

"Under contract" can also mean "SOLD" but the selling agent is leaving the re.com advert up as a lead gathering exercise. I just looked at one of my purchases from April that settles in less than a week - still offered "For Sale" but 'under contract'. Der!

 

Yep some of them are just plain slack in updating..... one we found had sold 8 mths ago but was still displaying "Under contract"

 

Yeh that's right: You call about property Y which has actually sold and the agent gets to say "I'm very sorry but property Y has sold; however, I still have property X on the market. Would you be interested in property X?"

This way the agent can get his hands on more potential buyers for their vendors' property.

 

Often the agent will play dumb and pretend to not know anything about removing your listing. You can phone rea.com and they will contact the agent and then eventually remove the listing if after 2 days they haven't responded

 

+ 1

 

Hey, just noted no need for the 10 character minimum.

 

Hey Eng! nice to see you here in PC.

There's a filter option to remove properties "under contract" in re.com.
Just tick the box that says "exclude properties under contract"
But as the others said, under contract doesn't necessarily means the deal will go through. If the a property that I liked is under contract, i normally ring up the agent and ask nicely if I can be contacted asap if this deal doesn't go ahead.

 

Best to call them if you are serious

 

If the contract fell through, I would be concerned. Had a few "under contract" that didn't proceed due to termite issues in the property or finance. My managing agent told that some real estates are slack with the posting because they like to have their name out there as an advertisement to say that they are still alive and kicking.

 

All of the above apply .

More frustrating is the properties that don't have it so you ring up to find out , and that's after you've spent time doing dd.

We've bought properties which have gone unconditional and are still on the net for sale .

What's even more annoying is making an appoint to fly from interstate to find that the property went under contract days before and then waiting outside and not have the agent turn up ......

Some agents are good , some are just plain bad and slack .

Cliff

 

CB a man of few words.