On March 13th, 2021, the real estate market was suddenly thrown into chaos due to a massive cyberattack on a third-party listing provider. The provider, which stores property information for more than 5 million residential and commercial real estate listings across the United States, had its entire system taken offline.
The attack has prevented brokers, agents, appraisers, and lenders from accessing and updating important data for home and business transactions. In the meantime, real estate markets are scrambling to find ways to carry on with the critical process of buying and selling properties.
The provider, which is also used by many real estate giants, such as Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, and Realtor.com, went offline with no warning. This surprise attack has brought real estate transactions, appraisals, mortgage applications, and home inspections to an abrupt halt.
“This malicious attack has caused major disturbances in the real estate market, with many deals postponed due to the delays in obtaining critical information from the provider,” said Bill Williams, CEO of the Real Estate Agents Association of America. “Real estate executives and industry professionals across the country are slowly finding ways to operate without the provider.”
The provider’s services had enabled brokers, agents, investors, and buyers to locate and examine properties, and realtors have accused cyber criminals for the attack. It is not yet known how the attack occurred, but experts suspect malware or a ransomware attack. The provider has also been ordered to take down its website while it works on security measures to get its services restored.
Real estate market professionals are not only worried about potential losses in revenue, but also changes that the attack could have on the market itself. Many have expressed concern for a potential hit to property values due to the sudden lack of data.
Given the volatile nature of the real estate markets, this attack has wide-reaching implications for the industry. Industry leaders are hoping to see the provider recover from this attack as soon as possible, but until then, real estate markets will remain in a state of confusion.
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