What Expired, Withdrawn and Cancelled Mean for a Columbus Listing

If your Columbus listing just came off the market, the word attached to it in the MLS is probably not the one everybody writes articles about. Of the 3,105 Central Ohio residential listings that left the market unsold between January 1 and August 30 of this year, 2,132 were cancelled, 606 expired and 367 were withdrawn. So cancelled is 68.7 percent of them, and expired, the word in every headline on this subject including the old version of this page, is 19.5 percent. The cancelled group had a median original asking price of $349,900, which is to say these are not the bargain end of the market. The three statuses mean three different things about your contract, and only one of them runs on autopilot.

I pulled all of it out of the Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS this week, and I am going to walk you through what each status is, which one releases you, what the relist rules do to your MLS number, and what happened to the sellers who came back. The last part has numbers in it that I have not seen published anywhere.

What is the difference between an expired, withdrawn and cancelled listing in Columbus?

Start with the form, because in this market these are not loose descriptions. They are checkboxes. The MLS Listing Change Form adopted by the Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS, dated March 2026, lists the statuses a residential listing can be moved between: Active, Coming Soon, Brokerage Exclusive, Pending / Under Contract, three flavors of Contingent, Withdrawn (Temporary Off Market), Cancelled, Expired, and Sold / Closed.

Expired is the automatic one. MLS Rule 1.12 says listings "will automatically be removed from the compilation of current listings on the expiration date specified in the agreement, unless prior to that date the MLS receives notice that the listing has been extended or renewed." Rule 1.13 requires every listing to "bear a definite and final termination date as negotiated between the listing broker and the seller(s)," and Ohio Revised Code 4735.55(C)(1) requires an expiration date in every written agency agreement in the state. Nobody has to do anything for a listing to expire. The calendar does it.

Cancelled is the mutual one, and it takes two signatures. The instrument is the Columbus REALTORS Listing Contract Rescission Form, which states that the listing contract "is hereby rescinded" and that "such action agreed upon releases both the Owner(s) and Listing Real Estate Company from any and all obligations contained therein." Read the signature block: listing broker or manager on one side, owners on the other. And before you ask for one, know that the Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Contract itself has no early-termination clause anywhere in it. It has a commencing date, a termination date and a protection period. A cancellation is something your brokerage agrees to, not something the contract already promises you.

Withdrawn is the one that gets sellers into trouble, and not for the reason the internet gives. The MLS's own label for it is Withdrawn (Temporary Off Market). MLS Rule 1.7 allows a listing to be withdrawn "by the listing broker before the expiration date of the listing agreement provided notice is filed with the Service including a copy of the agreement between the seller and the listing broker which authorizes the withdrawal," and then adds the sentence every Columbus seller should read twice: "Sellers do not have the unilateral right to require an MLS to withdraw a listing without the listing broker's concurrence. However, when a seller(s) can document that his exclusive relationship with the listing broker has been terminated, the Multiple Listing Service may remove the listing at the request of the seller."

So withdrawn can sit on top of a contract that is very much alive, and it can also sit on top of one that was rescinded, because the rescission form itself instructs the MLS to change the status to Withdrawn and Rescinded. The status alone does not tell you which situation you are in. Your listing contract's termination date does.

Which of the three is most common in Central Ohio?

This is the table I could not find anywhere, so I built it. Every row is residential listings across Franklin, Delaware, Licking, Fairfield, Union, Madison and Pickaway counties whose off-market date fell between January 1 and August 30, 2026.

Status	Listings	Share	Median original asking	Median final asking	Cut the price at least once	Median days from MLS entry to off market
Cancelled	2,132	68.7%	$349,900	$338,350	56.7%	65
Expired	606	19.5%	$345,000	$325,000	66.0%	149
Withdrawn	367	11.8%	$349,000	$339,000	44.4%	41

Source: Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS, one snapshot pulled 2026-08-30, 3,105 listings. Days are calculated from the MLS entry date to the off-market date, not the MLS days-on-market field.

Three things fall out of that table.

The first is the ordering. Central Ohio sellers who come off the market unsold overwhelmingly get there by cancellation, which means they asked and their brokerage agreed, usually about two months in. The 149-day median on the expired group is the tell: those are the listings where nobody asked for anything and the termination date arrived on its own.

The second is the price behavior. The expired group cut the price most, 66.0 percent of them did it, and dropped the furthest, a $20,000 gap between the median original ask and the median final ask. They cut and they still finished the term unsold, which is close to a definition of a price that started too high rather than a price that needed one more nudge. The withdrawn group cut least, 44.4 percent, and left fastest at 41 days, which is what a home taken off the market for a reason unrelated to price looks like.

The third is what is not in the table. Only 61 of the 3,105, which is 2.0 percent, had ever been under contract. Almost none of these are deals that fell apart. They are homes that never got an accepted offer. For context, the same seven counties closed 17,746 residential sales in 2026 through September 14 at a median of $365,000, so the failures are not a cheap slice of the market. Their median original ask, $349,900, sits right on the market.

Am I still under contract, or free to hire a new agent?

Ohio law is where this starts, and it is narrower than most sellers expect. Revised Code 4735.01(U) defines an exclusive right to sell listing agreement as one that "provides the broker will be compensated if the broker, the seller, or any other person or entity produces a purchaser or tenant in accordance with the terms specified in the listing agreement or if the property is sold or leased during the term of the listing agreement to anyone other than to specifically exempted persons or entities." Division (V) does the same for an exclusive agency agreement, with a carve-out when the property "is sold or leased solely through the efforts of the seller." Both versions of the statute were amended effective September 30, 2025.

The words doing the work are "during the term." Section 2 of the Columbus REALTORS Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Contract repeats them: compensation is owed "if during the term of this Listing Contract" the property is sold by anyone, or the brokerage produces a ready, willing and able buyer. Once the term is over, that trigger is done.

Which gives you a plain test. Find the Termination Date in Section 1 of your own listing contract. If that date has passed, the term is over and you can hire whoever you want. If it has not passed, you are inside the term no matter what the MLS status says, and the way out is a signed rescission or the date itself. I have had this conversation at a lot of kitchen tables, and it almost always ends with the seller finding the document and reading one line they had never read.

Do I owe my old agent a commission if I relist with someone else?

No, and the form says so in plain language. Section 5 of the Columbus REALTORS Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Contract is titled PROTECTION PERIOD. It says compensation is still owed if the property sells "within ____ days ("Protection Period") after the expiration of this Listing Contract or any extension thereof to anyone with whom Brokerage has had negotiations prior to expiration, provided Seller has received notice in writing, including the names of the prospective buyers, before or upon expiration."

Two limits are built into that. The day count is a blank on the form, negotiated like everything else, and Section 2 of the same contract now carries the statutory disclosure that broker fees "are not set by law, are fully negotiable." And the clause only reaches a buyer your brokerage negotiated with and then named to you in writing. A buyer who wandered through an open house and was never identified to you is not in it.

Then comes the sentence that ends the fear: "However, Seller shall not be obligated to pay Brokerage such compensation if Seller enters into a valid Listing Contract with another licensed real estate Brokerage during said Protection Period." The Rescission Form carries its own version of the same waiver. Signing with a new brokerage does not create a double commission in Columbus. It extinguishes the protection period.

Does my house get a new MLS number when I relist?

This is the mechanic almost nobody tells sellers, and it has money attached. MLS Rule 1.12 continues past the automatic-expiration language.

"If notice of renewal or extension is received by the same company and same listing agent or agent's real estate team member within 30 days after the listing has been removed from the compilation of current listings, the renewal or extension will serve to reactivate the former listing. However, if notice of renewal is received anytime by a different listing company or notice of renewal or extension is received by the same listing company but with a different listing agent who is not a member of the former listing agent's real estate team, the listing may receive a new MLS number."

Read that as the seller. Re-signing with the same agent inside 30 days reactivates the old listing, and the old listing arrives carrying everything it accumulated. Going to a different company can produce a new MLS number instead. Even inside one company, moving to an agent who is not on the former agent's team can produce one, through the Thirty-Day Re-List Waiver Form, which the broker or office manager has to authorize and which exists precisely as "an authorized policy exception" to Rule 1.12.

I am not telling you to switch agents. I am telling you the rule is asymmetric, and if you are going to relist with the same person, waiting past day 30 is not a trick, it is how the rule is written. Ask whoever you hire which of those two outcomes your relist will produce, and ask before you sign.

What happened to the Columbus listings that came back?

I tracked every listing that came off the market unsold in the first half of 2026 forward through September 14, matching on parcel number so a relist under a new MLS number still counts as the same house. I used the January to June group for this rather than all 3,105, because a listing that failed in August has two weeks of runway and one that failed in January has eight months, and mixing them would understate everything.

Of those 2,094 failed listings:

1. 924 came back on the market, which is 44.1 percent. A little under half.
2. 490 of those relists closed, which is 23.4 percent of the whole group and 53.0 percent of the ones that returned.
3. 404 of the 924 relisted with a different brokerage, which is 43.7 percent.
4. The relists that closed went under contract a median 23 days after re-entering the MLS.
5. They closed at a median $349,900, which is $23,650 below the failed listing's original asking price, and 82.4 percent of them finished below that original number.
6. Measured against the failed listing's final asking price, the one it had already been cut to, they still closed a median $11,000 under, and 72.2 percent finished below it.

Line 5 and line 6 together are the whole argument about price. These homes did not need a better photographer. Their second trip through the market ended roughly $23,650 under where the first trip started, and even below where the first trip had already retreated to. That gap is what the months cost.

The three statuses also behave differently on the way back, and the pattern lines up with what the contracts say:

Status when it left the market	Failed listings	Came back	Came back and closed
Cancelled	1,500	47.9%	26.1%
Expired	472	40.9%	19.7%
Withdrawn	122	9.8%	4.1%

Cancelled sellers are the most likely to return and the most likely to sell when they do, which makes sense: cancelling took a decision and a signature, and a seller who went to that effort at 65 days is a seller who still wants to move. Expired sellers come back a little less and sell noticeably less. One caveat I want to state rather than bury: a withdrawn listing keeps its MLS number when it goes back to Active, so a house that returns from withdrawn is invisible to a parcel match on new listings. That 9.8 percent is a floor, not a measurement. What it does show is that withdrawn homes rarely reappear as fresh listings, which is exactly what you would expect from a status sitting on a contract that never ended.

Where in Central Ohio do listings come off the market unsold?

Same 3,105 listings, broken out by mailing city, minimum 40 off-market listings to appear.

City	Off market unsold	Cancelled	Expired	Withdrawn	Median original asking
Columbus	1,403	71.4%	18.5%	10.1%	$259,900
Delaware	139	71.9%	16.5%	11.5%	$509,900
Dublin	97	76.3%	12.4%	11.3%	$485,000
Grove City	96	68.8%	14.6%	16.7%	$380,950
Newark	94	52.1%	36.2%	11.7%	$249,900
Westerville	93	60.2%	17.2%	22.6%	$454,900
Powell	81	72.8%	13.6%	13.6%	$626,900
Lancaster	74	60.8%	20.3%	18.9%	$276,894
Hilliard	69	66.7%	26.1%	7.2%	$399,500
Plain City	67	64.2%	19.4%	16.4%	$599,900
Reynoldsburg	66	51.5%	31.8%	16.7%	$327,400
Canal Winchester	63	66.7%	23.8%	9.5%	$374,900
Pickerington	60	76.7%	13.3%	10.0%	$463,400
Pataskala	44	68.2%	13.6%	18.2%	$422,450
Blacklick	43	76.7%	14.0%	9.3%	$385,000
Lewis Center	40	65.0%	20.0%	15.0%	$627,400

The expired column is the interesting one. In Newark 36.2 percent of the failures ran all the way to the termination date, and in Reynoldsburg 31.8 percent did, against 12.4 percent in Dublin and 13.3 percent in Pickerington. Where listings are likelier to be cancelled early, somebody is making a decision at 60 days. Where they are likelier to expire, the listing rode out its term. Westerville has the highest withdrawn share on the board at 22.6 percent, on the second-highest median ask of the built-out suburbs.

Was it the house, or was it the price?

Let me say the part you are probably braced for. In this data the house is almost never the story. Only 2.0 percent of these listings ever had a buyer under contract, so inspections and appraisals are not what killed them, and the ones that eventually sold did it a median $23,650 under their own opening number. That is a pricing and exposure outcome, and both of those are decisions, not conditions.

That does not mean the house is irrelevant. My dad, my grandpa, my uncle and my great-grandpa were builders, I worked in it until I was twenty, and I sold roofs, siding, windows, gutters and downspouts before I ever sold a house. When I walk a listing that did not sell I am looking for water, I am looking at the downspouts and where they send it, at siding and soffit, at window seals, at whether the thing is structurally and systemically sound. If something in the house is going to cost you a buyer, I would rather tell you now than let you discover it on somebody's inspection report in month four. You still need a home inspection. I am not an inspector.

But the fix for most of these is upstream of the house. I wrote the longer recovery version in My Listing Expired in Columbus. Now What? and the diagnostic version in My House Isn't Selling in Columbus. Why?, and if the number is where you already suspect the problem is, the mechanics of doing something about it are in price reduction strategy when your Columbus home is not selling. The full seller version lives on my your home didn't sell page, and the current market context is in the Columbus housing market report.

What I will pull for you

Send me the address and I will read your own listing back to you off the MLS: the termination date on file, whether a protection period is still running and for how long, which of the three statuses your house is carrying, whether a relist would come back on a new MLS number or reactivate the old one, and what the relists in your town closed at against their first asking price. No charge and no obligation, whether you end up listing with me or not. If you want a number on the house at the same time, start with my home value page and I will check it against the closed sales rather than an algorithm.

Text me the address at 937.239.2919 or grab a time at calendly.com/adam-geuy.

Adam Geuy, Realtor, Blacktree Realty ABR, PSA, SRS | License #2020007964 937.239.2919 | calendly.com/adam-geuy

Sources

• Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS, residential listing data. One snapshot export pulled 2026-08-30 for off-market status counts (3,105 listings across Franklin, Delaware, Licking, Fairfield, Union, Madison and Pickaway counties with an off-market date between 2026-01-01 and 2026-08-30) and the full export set through 2026-09-14 for relist and closing outcomes matched on parcel number. Computed in stats.py in this post's working package. Days are calculated from date fields, never the MLS days-on-market field.
• Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS, MLS Listing Change Form, Residential, revision 3/2026: the enumerated listing statuses, including Withdrawn (Temporary Off Market), Cancelled and Expired, and the 30-day cap on Coming Soon.
• Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS Rules and Regulations: Section 1.6 (status changes require written seller authorization and must be filed within 24 hours), Section 1.7 (withdrawal prior to expiration, and no unilateral seller right to withdraw), Section 1.12 (automatic removal on the expiration date, and the 30-day reactivation-versus-new-MLS-number rule), Section 1.13 (definite and final termination date).
• Columbus REALTORS, Exclusive Right to Sell Listing Contract, Residential: Section 1 (commencing and termination dates), Section 2 (compensation owed "if during the term of this Listing Contract," plus the negotiable-fee disclosure), Section 5 (PROTECTION PERIOD, the blank day count, the written-notice requirement, and the waiver on signing with another brokerage).
• Columbus REALTORS, Listing Contract Rescission Form: mutual rescission releasing "both the Owner(s) and Listing Real Estate Company from any and all obligations contained therein," its own protection period and named prospective buyers, and the instruction to change the MLS status to Withdrawn and Rescinded.
• Columbus REALTORS, Thirty-Day Re-List Waiver Form: the broker-authorized policy exception to MLS Rule 1.12 that assigns a new MLS number when a different agent inside the same company takes over a listing.
• Ohio Revised Code Section 4735.55: division (C)(1) requires an expiration date in every written agency agreement; division (C)(7) requires the conspicuous statement that broker fees and commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable. Effective September 30, 2025, re-pulled 2026-09-29.
• Ohio Revised Code Section 4735.01: divisions (U) and (V), the definitions of an exclusive right to sell or lease listing agreement and an exclusive agency agreement, including the "during the term of the listing agreement" compensation trigger. Effective September 30, 2025, re-pulled 2026-09-29.
• Columbus REALTORS MLS Information: Clear Cooperation Policy Section 1.01, effective May 1, 2020, requiring submission to the MLS within one business day of marketing a property to the public; the nine-county-plus service area; more than 700 cooperating offices. Re-pulled 2026-09-29.