Under contract or pending:
what is the difference?

Two people can be talking about the same house and mean different things. A buyer says a listing went pending. The seller says they are under contract. Both are right, and the words are not interchangeable. One describes the deal. The other describes what the listing is telling the public about it.

Under contract is the deal. The buyer and the seller have both signed, and the house is working its way toward closing. On the standard form a New Jersey agent prepares, attorney review runs first, and the deposit, the mortgage application and the inspections each get a deadline counted from the day review ends. A home stays under contract until it closes or the deal falls apart.

Pending is a status on the listing. On Bright MLS, pending means a home has an accepted contract that has not closed, and the seller has stopped taking showings and backup offers. It does not tell you what is still unsettled in the deal. A house can be pending with the inspection still open and a house can be pending with everything cleared, and the status reads the same either way.

There is one more status on the listing, and it is the one a buyer should watch: active under contract. The seller accepted an offer but is still showing the home and may take backup offers while part of the deal gets settled. If you are still looking and something you wanted flips to active under contract, that is the moment to call your agent, not the moment to cross it off. Days on market are counted the same way in either status: the number starts the first day a home is active, pauses while it sits in active under contract or pending, and stops at closing.

If you are the one who just signed, the thing worth doing that week is putting the dates on a calendar. Your agent can give you the deadlines in writing and tell you which ones are yours to hit. The loan dates come from your lender. What a clause in your own contract means for you is a question for a licensed New Jersey attorney.