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Cyberattack on Popular Property Listing Software Throws Bay Area Real Estate Market into Chaos

Holly Secon — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 21:23:10 GMT

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.

Betty White's Carmel Vacation Home Hits Market For $8M

Jay Barmann — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 22:19:31 GMT

A Monterey County vacation home with sweeping ocean views that the late Betty White built with her husband Allen Ludden in the late 1970s has just hit the market for the first time, listed for $7.9 million.

"Infused with an effervescent energy, this three-story manor offers a parade of serene moments from outdoor decks, discrete spaces lush with blooms, and through generous windows that showcase the majesty of land meeting sea," reads the Sotheby's listing for 2625 Ribera Road in Carmel. "Step through the back gate to put your toes in the sand, or choose from an assortment of walking trails throughout the elegantly understated Carmel Meadows neighborhood. Here, paradise is yours."

White and Ludden purchased the land in 1978 for $170,000, as NBC Bay Area reports. The four-bedroom, five-bath vacation retreat would be completed three years later, in 1981 — though it's unclear if Ludden ever got to see it finished. He died in June of '81 of stomach cancer — though Wikipedia notes that he first slipped into a coma while on vacation in Monterey County in October 1980 due to the cancer treatments he was taking.

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Photos via MLS/Sotheby's

White, of course, died on New Year's Eve, just 17 days shy of her 100th birthday.

The photos show a very pleasant, still fashionable, beach-y vibe in the house — though the listing photos very purposely leave out the kitchen, which you can see from a sliver of an oven in the dining room photo is dated and untouched since 1981.

See more via Zillow.

Photos via MLS/Sotheby's

Hot New Neighborhood 'Union Square West' Sounds A Lot Like The Tenderloin Because It Is

Caleb Pershan — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 09:40:16 GMT

If "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," the Tenderloin is going to smell exactly the same regardless of the latest realtor-fabricated renaming, in this case "Union Square West."

In press materials, real estate firm JLL writes that "A new area is taking shape, bridging the gap between the newest trade area in San Francisco, Mid-Market, with the gritty, up-and-coming Tenderloin, and it has potential to be one of the hottest retail locations in San Francisco." The customers are already there, JLL posits: "The demographic and psychographic profile of the 16 square-block area bound by Mason, Sutter, Jones, and Market, is shifting toward a consumer that loves art, design, craft cocktails and beer, live entertainment, and is eager and willing to pay premium prices for these things."

WTF is a psychographic profile? Apparently it's a thing, and this is the one for the area:

Metro Renters: 65% Educated professionals in their early 30s, largely white, with a median income of $52K

Trendsetters: 20% Single professionals in their late 30s, largely white, with median income of $51k

Social Security Set: 15% Late 40s, only high school diploma, diverse group with median income of $16k

More cool names! Yes, there are youngish white yupsters in the Tenderloin, and no, the area is not as impervious to change or immune to gentrification as many are inclined to believe. But changes needn't occur overnight, and they won't just because they're willed.

In fact, since nothing is ever new, Randy Shaw writes in Beyond Chron that "The prospect of the Tenderloin becoming an extension of Union Square reemerged in the early 1980’s. Developers proposed a “Union Square West” highrise condo project at Eddy and Taylor. Residents rose up to defeat it, and the 1985 Tenderloin rezoning barred future highrise development."

"Rebranding" the "TL" didn't work then, and it won't now — nor should it, says Shaw. "The Tenderloin’s brand is different from Union Square’s, and it is stronger today than in the past fifty years. Those tired of chain stores and homogenous neighborhoods appreciate the grittiness, sense of history, and economic and ethnic diversity in the Tenderloin that is missing from too many now gentrified urban neighborhoods."

Of course, plenty of those yupsters you and I might know have a fondness for referring to the Tenderloin's northern section as the Tendernob or Lower Nob Hill. That's cool, but the Tenderloin is cooler! As Katie Conry of the Tenderloin Museum puts it to KPIX 5, "[We're] trying to change people’s conceptions of the Tenderloin, not make it something different or give it a different name."

SF Realtors, Please Stop 'Starring' In Your Listings Videos

Eve Batey — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 11:55:00 GMT

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.

Now We Think We Get What's Going On With Neverland

Jay Barmann — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:15:23 GMT

The details were fuzzier before, and it seemed like the place was being prepped for some kind of exposure. Now it is becoming clear that the co-owners of Neverland, a real estate firm called Colony Capital LLC, want to offload the place to some entrepreneur or mega-wealthy fan so that they can turn it into the tourist attraction it seems destined to become. They opened the property to the news media on Thursday, seemingly with the hope of showing it off to potential buyers. And Michael hadn't even been living there for four years -- after his 2005 child molestation trial he felt the spirit of the place had been destroyed, and he moved to another house five miles up the road. In 2008 sold a share of the house to Colony Capital in order to assist with $24 million in mortgage arrears. So the road trip is still on, kids! All you have to do is show a press credential or pretend to be a wealthy buyer to get in!

The NY Times has this nice slide show of Neverland, which smacks a little of a broker's sales portfolio, especially since the place has pretty much been emptied of furniture. That is, except for the ice cream cart which was a gift from Elizabeth Taylor.

New Real Estate Map Adds New Neighborhood Names to SF

Jay Barmann — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:15:51 GMT

Real estate agents have always reveled in transforming a neighborhood, or a sub-section of a shitty neighborhood, through the kind of re-branding that turns a place like Hell's Kitchen in NYC into Midtown West. Well, the San Francisco Association of Realtors are releasing their latest map, which is going to affect the official listing location of every property in town, and it includes such creative renamings as Barbary Coast for the Financial District, and NoPa for that section of the Western Addition that's home to a certain popular restaurant. Apparently the realtors stopped short of including TenderNob, because we all know that's kind of bullshit (and there's so few for-sale properties there that the real estate people don't give a shit). Says Matthew Borland, the agent leading the remapping, "the changes had to reflect a true change and feel of the fabric of a neighborhood."

But if we just keep making up new neighborhoods every few years, doesn't it turn every city into a living mash-up of euphemisms? Anyhow, try out the interactive map on SFGate to figure out where you now live.