CINCINNATI — Cincinnati home buyers, sellers, real estate agents, listing websites and more have been hamstrung by a cyber attack against California-based Rapattoni Corporation.
Rapatonni provides data services for Cincinnati's Multiple Listing Service, or Cincy MLS, which allows agents to have access to data on which homes are coming to the market, update information about home listings, track offers and purchases and connect buyers to sellers.
"The place that stores all of our data has been hit by a cyber attack," said Cincy MLS President-Elect Tracy Dunne.
Dunne said the information assisting 7,500 real estate agents in Cincinnati has now become inaccessible, greatly impacting the way information is exchanged in the housing industry.
"You're not going to be able to push a button and see your home online the way you're accustomed to," she said.
Popular house market apps like Zillow have also been affected as their listings largely rely on MLS data to stay current.
A Zillow representative said Friday their staff was working diligently with partners in the region to update listings manually.
Peter Chabris, CEO of The Chabris Group, said the attack and information loss came in one of the hottest housing markets in Cincinnati's history.
"Prior to Monday, we were in the most acute seller's market this city has ever seen," Chabris said. "We went from super low inventory to no inventory."
He said the disruption was unprecedented.
Chabris said the MLS system has gone down for hours at a time before, once for a day, but he has — in 21 years in realty — never seen a multi-day crash like this one.
"All of us are starting to adjust to the new normal and pivot," he said. "It's like we're in the pandemic. You find a different way to fly the plane in mid-air."
In an internal memo to Cincy MLS provided to WCPO, Rapattoni said it was working to resolve the issue.
As we have previously communicated, Rapattoni’s production network was hit by a cyber-attack and we are working diligently around the clock to get systems restored as soon as possible.
We are actively investigating the nature and scope of the event. The confidentiality, privacy, and security of information in our care is one of our highest priorities.
All technical resources are devoted to this effort. We do not have an ETA at this time, but we will continue to update you and keep you informed of our efforts.
Chabris said the people worst impacted by an outage like this are those who have just begun to search for housing.
"People who are losing right now are renters who are trying to get a home before their lease ends before they're forced to lease for another year," Chabris said.
Chabris said, ironically, buyers could benefit from the outage if they've already identified the home they want as they will now likely face less competition from other buyers.
He suggested prospective buyers partner with large real estate agents or broker firms with large existing networks to connect buyers with sellers as the best chance to find a home.
Dunne said Cincy MLS has created a Facebook page for agents to share data as a short-term fix.
She said they had already been working to move away from Rapattoni and contract with a different data firm before the outage, but have now accelerated that process as a long-term solution.
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