The Calgary real estate board has implemented a change to the rules on conditional offers. It used to be that when a home had a conditional offer, where the buyers and sellers had agreed on price and possession date, the listing would be changed on the MLS from Active to Pending.

Pending means that there are some conditions on the offer that need to be satisfied in order for the deal to become firm. These conditions usually involve having the buyer get their financing in order where the bank has all of their income verification slips and has granted them a mortgage on that particular property with no other conditions. There will also usually be a home inspection condition as well where the home is verified to be free of any major defects. There can be other conditions as well but those two are found in most deals.

The conditions usually take around 7 to 10 days to complete. It is during this period that the house would be considered conditionally sold. So in the past if you were looking for a home as a buyer, you would probably avoid homes that were marked “pending” on the MLS because you don’t want to waste your time as the deal will probably be completed.

Now, you could be looking at properties that are “pending” but you may not know it, if the seller has instructed their realtor not to mark it as pending. This will be an inconvenience for the buyer and could waste their time. When I take out my buyers I will always ask the listing realtor if the property is still available and not “pending”

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