Real estate agents in Marin are in a frenzy after a crucial online tool used for connecting home buyers to sellers was hacked.
The service remains down on Friday, right before a weekend of crucial open houses.
A ransomware cyber-attack on Wednesday caused the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), a property information and cooperative data service, to be down nationwide. This outage made new property listings and open houses unsearchable, as well as certain data unavailable.
Megan Pomponio, a real estate agent with Compass Real Estate in Kentfield, stated that the MLS outage has limited the available information, resulting in postponed listings and delayed communication between agents and brokers.
“I have no idea what’s going on or how long it will take,” she said on Friday.
While she did not have any listings planned for the weekend, she mentioned that she was unable to see the status of current listings or any private remarks, such as the location of keys, all of which are critical information for open houses.
An email sent to subscribers from BAREIS, the regional MLS for Marin County, stated that it might take days to resolve the issue and for Rapattoni MLS, the parent software company, to regain access to the network.
The email also provided instructions for temporary workarounds, such as an alternative platform where brokers and agents could post information about open houses.
Romeo Arrieta, CEO of the Marin Association of Realtors, reassured that the association has other ways to assist its members and multiple methods to access member data.
“While this is not ideal, business is still happening,” he stated on Friday. “Realtors are adapting and keeping the market moving while Rapattoni resolves the issue.”
Antony Erlec, a Compass Realtor based in San Francisco with listings in Marin, mentioned that he had a listing he hoped to post on Thursday but couldn’t due to the outage. He also noted that even if the issue is resolved in the next few days, it could still affect the timing of other listings.
“We wanted to list it today, and still can’t,” he said on Friday. “We have another planned listing next week, but we were hoping to spread these listings out.”
The agents discussed the unfortunate timing of the MLS outage occurring on a weekend and right before the start of the school year.
“A lot of people are trying to get settled before school starts,” Pomponio said.
Erlec added that the ideal scenario is to list properties now for them to be sold before Labor Day. If not, he said the strategy would be to wait until after the holiday weekend to list.
“I really hope it is resolved soon,” he concluded.