That’s right, last week the MLS was hacked and has been down ever since. For the first time in my 19 years of selling real estate I could not log onto BAREIS (Bay Area Real Estate Information Services) to look at the new listings. It turns out Rappatoni, which operates our local MLS was the victim of a cyber attack that has effected all of their MLS systems. From Fresno https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article278239123.html up to Tahoe and well beyond, the systems are being held hostage until a ransom is paid, or Rappatoni figures out how to get their system back online.
I was speaking with a Realtor in Tahoe today whose broker is preparing their agents to not have the MLS for MONTHS! Maybe not until 2024 will we have the system up and running again. Or it could be restored tomorrow. Meanwhile BAREIS MLS was informing their members that they were hoping to get the system up during the middle of this week. Wishful thinking? It turns out at least 34 real estate organizations in 12 states have been effected by this outage. The more I’m learning about the situation, the worse it seems for all these MLS sites.
What does this mean for buyers, sellers and Realtors? It’s not pretty. Fortunately, I don’t have any listings on the market currently, but that will be changing soon and I’ll be working through the situation. Here was the Tuesday morning update from BAREIS MLS when I logged on:
Search BAREIS listings, history, and confidential agent information through MetroList
Log into the MetroList Prospector+ System with your BAREIS Agent ID and password (case sensitive) to search BAREIS listings and all NORCAL MLS ALLIANCE listings. This is read only access—not able to add or edit listings in MetroList Prospector+.
Broker Tours by BAREIS Members
Enter brief information for your Broker Tour to share with BAREIS members and Click here to view the list of Tours.
New Listings Spreadsheet
Enter brief information for New Listings to share with BAREIS members and View New Listings.
Open Houses by BAREIS Members
Enter brief information for your Open House to share with BAREIS members and Click here to view the list of Open Houses.
Ability to Update Listings on Zillow and Trulia
Zillow Group has created a process to update the Price and Status display of BAREIS listings on Zillow.com and Trulia.com. To submit PRICE or STATUS changes for Zillow and Trulia, the listing agent or listing broker should email IDX@norcalmls.com the following information:
Listing address
MLS# (if you have it)
Listing agent BAREIS ID
Listing agent name
Listing brokerage name
New Price request
New Status request
Zillow will not accept modification requests directly from MLS members.
The situation could be worse. There could be no work arounds, and as time goes on, we will adapt. I’m sure that motivated buyers will find properties. This might be a great opportunity for buyers to find the right houses with less competition. Sellers are going to need to be patient. I think the best way to get word out about new listings is going to be holding open houses.
Again, things could be a lot worse. The attack could have happened in the spring, which would have been more devastating to the industry. It would have hit us at the worst possible time. If this drags on after Labor Day then it will be hitting us at the second worst time because that’s when things usually pick up after the lulls of summer.
The new listings spreadsheet is helpful. Currently there are 33 new listings in Marin on the spreadsheet, Sonoma has 76, Solano 50, Napa 22 and Mendocino 13. Instead of photos and descriptions all we have to go off are addresses with prices, the number of beds and baths plus the agent’s contact information. This is possibly where supplementing through Zillow will come in handy, as a seller can list their home for sale on the site and add open dates and times. Buyers can easily pull up that information on the weekends, and Realtors will have access to their own open house spreadsheets.
Business, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The longer Rappatoni stays down, the more refined and comfortable the real estate industry will get using other means to sell homes. It’s going to be a work in progress. Please bear with us while we do our best to work without our main tool for selling houses.