What do "inactive listings" mean?

Sellers realized the pillaging was over and pulled listings in hopes the salad days would return. Too bad: they won't.

If there is a sale price or "insider's only" in the left column it's sold, if there is nothing in the left column it's either expired or pull off the market.

it means the apartment is in contract

Can we get a definite answer from streeteasy on this? If the listings are "pending", I assumed they were in contract but what is inactive?

Yes but even if i'm an insider it doesn't always show something on the left side. Does that mean streeteasy just doesn't have the information?

not true, two posts above! The apartment we bought last summer is blank in the left column and listed as "inactive" when you click it on. I don't know how the streeteasy site gets it's info on "sold" apartments. When you go to the broker's website from whom we purchased our apartment, the apartment is stamped "sold." I don't know if streeteasy is checking the public records or not. If they are checking, and mine isn't recorded, I better contact my lawyer asap!

Another thing, if you look further into some of those listings that are blank in the left column, some are re-listed with other brokers, making the number of days on the market meaningless.

Buyer beware!

Streeteasy please comment!! If the listings and time on market aren't accurate maybe I should cancel my subscription and goto propertyshark.com!!!

Above poster, I don't believe it's streeteasy's fault that they are not properly identifying "inactive" listings. Businessweek columnist Peter Coy in his January 22, 2007 column "New Listing!(Sort Of)" speaks exactly to this point of how brokers give new meaning to the words "New Listing." He talks about how a house that sat on the market for a few months was withdrawn from the MLS list and then relisted with a new property ID, therefore wiping out the number of days on the market and also skewing the figures for that area. In the situation I described above, I noticed that a listing that sat on the market for almost a year was withdrawn from one broker and then re-listed at a lower price with a second broker. I don't think streeteasy can easily identify those listings. This is a problem within the real estate business which Coy also discusses in his article. Only an honest broker who knows the inventory would be capable of knowing a listing's true number of days on the market and would then share it with a buyer. Again, Buyer Beware!!!