As if the Bay Area housing market isn’t already chaotic enough, a crucial software service used by real estate agents to manage property listings has been hit by a cyberattack, causing a major meltdown for the industry.

For nearly two weeks, real estate agents have been grappling with the fallout of the attack on Rapattoni Corporation, a Southern California-based company that provides property listing data to multiple listing services (known as “MLS”) used by realtor associations nationwide, as the SF Business Times reported. And there’s no end in sight yet.

The breach has reportedly paralyzed several workflows across the industry. Agents rely on Rapattoni's services to input and edit new listings, which automates the process of updating and sharing property information with buyers. Now, they’re apparently forced to manually update hundreds of listings and even print out the information a la early 2000s Mapquest.

Rapattoni Corporation, in a tweet last week, acknowledged the cyberattack and noted that they were actively investigating the breach. The company mentioned that they were working tirelessly to restore the system but couldn't provide a specific timeline for when services would be fully operational again.

"It is wreaking havoc everywhere," David Bellings, a long-time real estate agent, told the Chronicle. Damon Knox, President of the San Francisco Association of Realtors, added that it’s an inconvenience and there might be financial repercussions.

The incident has triggered a federal investigation, and Rapattoni’s insurance carriers are in talks with the hackers to try to get the software operating again, as the RealDeal reported.

It’s unclear what type of cyberattack hit Rapattoni, but ArsTechnica reported that it’s likely a ransomware attack, in which hackers access the business’ network and private data, then demand payment in exchange for unlocking the data or not publishing it. That could lead to a whole host of even bigger issues for real estate sellers, buyers, and agents.

Feature image: Feverpitched via iStock/Getty Images Plus.

Yes, it's true: San Francisco's pricey real estate is out of reach for most of us, but that doesn't mean we don't enjoy (and or hate-enjoy) looking at it. So today I have a modest proposal for all y'all realtors out there — instead of ham-handedly doing the video yourself, or (even worse) flying some drone around with a horrible soundtrack in the background, why not get a local personality to show potential buyers around?

This occurred to me after watching the below listing video for this Bernal Heights home, which is hosted by local drag performers Mercedez Munro and Katya Smirnoff-Skyy.

A tastefully staged three bedroom, two bath that's going for nearly $2 million, the house is perfectly fine! Nothing especially remarkable in either a good or bad way. It's completely inoffensive, which can sometimes mean a little boring. I suspect that's one of the reasons Danielle Lazier & SFhotlist San Francisco Real Estate chose the drag queen approach — by having Munro and Smirnoff-Skyy show us the place, it takes a blandly luxurious structure and makes it feel a little more fun, interesting, and the tiniest bit edgy.

So I started thinking, why don't more realtors do this — take an SF notable and have them be the host of the listing video?

For example, let's take this 18th Street duplex. Realtor Kevin Ho, bless his heart, managed to get $1.099 million for this arguably dilapidated Mission home, despite this home-job of a video:

Imagine, instead, if Kevin had just run the iPhone (move your finger, Kevin. No, it's still in front of the lens) as, say, part-time SF resident John Waters showed off the duplex. You guys, you KNOW Waters would relish the chance to have done commentary on a place like this one, and he would have been amazing. I mean, Kevin did a fine job, and the place sold for a lot, so he's probably wiping away the tears from my critique with fifty-dollar bills. But how much could the place have sold for with John Waters showing it off? Kevin, you could be wiping those tears with Benjamins.

Or how about the Million Dollar Dirt Lot?

Nearly a month after it went up for sale, this patch of sand at Noriega Street and 11th Avenue appears to remain on the market. It's not too late to turn this ship around, folks: let's get Jan Wahl out there clambering around on that hill, clutching at her hat as she extolls the joys of this million-dollar lot of dirt. To keep Jan from hurting herself, and to give her someone to riff with, I'd probably pair her with similarly be-hatted Broke-Ass Stuart — Jan can grab at his arm when she stumbles, and he can talk about how this lot is a great place to smoke weed or whatever.

Come on, admit it. You would watch this video. Yeah, it might be a hate-watch, but that's still a watch. And I'm sure you all can think of even better real estate/bold-faced name pairings than I can! It's fun, right?

In conclusion: in a market like this one, I suspect that it some real estate agents might not think they have to put any effort into selling a property at all. And they might be right — why spend money staging a place, or fancying up a listing, if it's going to go for jillions over ask anyway? So maybe my plea comes from a selfish place, as I watch a lot of these videos and crave spark and originality.

But, who knows, even if it doesn't help you sell some dump, there might be benefits to making a more star(using the term loosely)-powered listing video. After all, if you make one that's buzzy enough, maybe Bravo will offer to replace one of those Million Dollar Listing SF choads with your upwardly-mobile ass. See, now you get to be the star after all.

Today in easily condensed magazine articles: Fast Company has unleashed their list of the 100 Most Creative People In Business. Besides making for an easy read, Fast Company's list gives us our daily affirmation that San Francisco is still a town full of creative-thinking business types (and business-minded creative types). Local honorees on the tech-heavy list include everything from the usual suspects (hello, Twitter) to an unexpectedly disruptive local grocery store.

Top honors for locals aren't too suprising: Facebook's Head of Consumer Marketing, Rebecca Van Dyck nabs the #2 spot, and Silicon Valley VC fund cofounder Ben Horowitz cracked the top ten at #8.

Looking further down the list, a few other locals get nods for their hard work in areas not limited to technology or Silicon Valley: Bi-Rite Owner Sam Mogannam, for example, lands on the list at #86 right next to the always-hilarious Aziz Ansari for churning out sales-per-square-foot numbers that rival an Apple store.

Without further ado, your list of Bay Area creative geniuses:

2. Rebecca Van Dyck, Head of Consumer Marketing, Facebook
8. Ben Horowitz, Cofounder, Andreessen Horowitz
16. Laura Mather, Cofounder, Silver Tail Systems
20. Steve Lee, Product Management Director, Google [X]
21. Claire Diaz-Ortiz, Manager of Social Innovation, Twitter
39. Tim Schafer, Founder, Double Fine Productions
53. Anand Rajaraman & Venky Harinarayan, Coheads, WalmartLabs
66. Danny Trinh, Designer, Path
67. Lee Linden, Cofounder, CEO, Karma
70. Ren Ng, Founder/CEO, Lytro
86. Sam Mogannam, Owner, Bi-Rite

[FastCo]

Looking to throw the most precious wedding ever? In need of a location for that indie film on a shoestring budget? Or just looking for a quiet staycation? Look no further than Eventup, which just launched yesterday in San Francisco.

The site was created by former MySpace CEO Mike Jones' tech studio Science in Los Angeles and expanded to New York before starting up in San Francisco.

Some prime listings include Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe's Home, the World's Only Floating Island, the house from Mrs. Doubtfire, Jimi Hendrix's Apartment, the de Young Museum, the Flood Mansion, lots of swanky hotels, restaurants and museums, and several little quaint private residences. As Eventup's press release notes, it's been called both Opentable for parties and Airbnb for events. We certainly wish it was around when we were planning our charmingly disorganized DIY wedding.

As Technorati notes, it's free to list locations, and Eventup procures a 10% fee for any events booked through their service. According to Yahoo, Eventup manages the entire booking process, "from scheduling a walk-through to booking the location for your event, offering venue owners insurance options to safeguard their property. The company’s customer support care is available 24/7 to answer questions from both venue owners and booking guests to make the event planning process more efficient."

by Moses Namkung

Random music musings to start off the week: of all the days of the week, does Saturday have the best songs about it (Sam Cooke, Chicago, the Cure, Elton, Bowie)? If so, does Monday come in second (Mamas and the Papas, New Order, the Bangles, Duran^2, the Carpenters, Wilco, and yes, the Boomtown Rats)?

Anyhoo. With SXSW over, life in the music world can finally get back to business as usual. As for the world of Bay Area music? We've been digging The Tallest Man On Earth's record and he is playing Wednesday at Rickshaw Stop. Just in case you were wondering, the Tallest Man is not actually all that tall: "if there are three billion men in the world, this guy is probably the 2,145,799,276th tallest. He's kind of short."

Select list of shows around the city, after the jump...

Per the rangers at Muir Woods, one Coho made it up Redwood Creek this month. Another Coho tried, but was intercepted and eaten by a hungry river otter. Oh well.

Godspeed endangered fishies.