1. Check Your Local Assessor's Office. On your local tax assessor's official website, you may be able to look up property tax records and find the property owner by their address. You can learn who owns the home as well as how much property tax they pay.

If you see the word “contingent” on your listing, it means that your buyer is working through any contingencies that were a part of their offer — like a financing contingency, home inspection contingency, or buyer home sale contingency. We'll talk more about these below.

When a property is pending, it means the seller accepted a buyer's offer, and both parties agreed to a contract and met their shared requirements. A pending home is in the final stages of escrow and the closing process, which involves transferring property ownership, completing the purchase and signing final documents.