Prop status changed before answering round 2 of negotiations

[Elizabeth Hammon]

Hello - We were scheduled to tour a property last Saturday morning. When we got there our agent informed us that an offer had been made on it the previous day and the seller was holding off on responding to it so that we might also have a chance to be considered if we chose to bid. They wanted $260k, which was fair. On Saturday afternoon we submitted an offer for $260k with an escalation clause that went up to $275k. This property had an open house mid-day on Sunday. I'm guessing it wasn't well attended because my agent called Sunday afternoon and said that there was still just two offers on it - mine and the first one. The seller wanted both of us to go back and reformat our offers with our best and final price without any escalation clauses. They wanted this from us by 4pm so they could review and choose one to accept. To me, this sounded like my offer and the first one were probably similar and the seller was just trying to get more money from one of us. I don't know why they wouldn't just counter - but whatever! Anyway - we went back to them and said hey, our offer is $260k and you're welcome to envoke the escalation clause if the other offer is above that. We responded well before the 4pm deadline. We still have not heard back about it. It's Tuesday morning and I just got Redfin alert saying that the property is now pending. I forwarded the alert to my agent but haven't heard back (because it's 8:15am). I'm wondering why the seller agent would update the status before informing us of their decision. Does this mean they're passing us up or could they have decided to go with us and we just don't know about it yet? Does the property have to be officially under contract for the seller to change the status to pending? Thanks!