So recently I was asked "What's the difference between CONTINGENT, PENDING, and UNDER CONTRACT?"
Pending and Contingent both mean the property is under contract. The buyer and the seller have agreed on some terms and the buyer is moving toward buying the house. On the Realtor side if we mark contingent it means the contract is dependent on something: could be anything like the buyer has a home to sell or close or the buyer needs to be able to get the funds from a retirement or some kind of savings fund or the buyer needs financing to purchase. Outside of the money, contingencies can also include inspections, permits, appraisal, etc. If we mark the property under contract on our MLS system, it no longer feeds to the public websites so the Seller gets no more showings. Sometimes that's what they want but others want it to continue to show in case something happens to the first contract or one of the contingencies are not met. Different websites use these terms to simply mean under contract.
Let me know if I can answer a question you have.