Was your data in the Real Estate Mogul breach?
Check whether your email address was in it
Check my exposureFree. No password — we email you a six-digit code. This breach and every other one your address appears in.
Real Estate Mogul (realestatemogul.com) suffered a data breach in 2016 that exposed around 307,768 accounts. If you had an account, some of your personal data may be circulating in leaked databases. The fastest way to know is to check your own email — free, in about 30 seconds, no password required.
What happened
In September 2016, the real estate investment site Real Estate Mogul had a Mongo DB instance compromised and 5GB of data downloaded by an unauthorised party. The data contained real estate listings including addresses and the names, phone numbers and 308k unique email addresses of the sellers. Real Estate Mogul was advised of the incident in September 2018 and stated that they "found no instance of user account credentials like usernames and passwords nor billing information within this file".
Breach record from Have I Been Pwned, CC BY 4.0. Risk analysis by Nullivo.
What was exposed, and why it matters
Not all breaches carry the same risk — what matters is which fields leaked. Here is what the Real Estate Mogul breach exposed and what each item actually enables:
What to do if you were affected
These steps are ordered for this specific breach — the most urgent action given what leaked comes first.
- Home addresses
Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating. - Phone numbers
Move two-factor authentication off SMS to an authenticator app or passkey, and add a port-out PIN with your mobile provider. - Names and usernames
Search your usual username to see what else it exposes, and use distinct handles for sensitive accounts. - Email addresses
Treat any message referencing this service with suspicion, and never act on links in unexpected emails. - Confirm you were actually in it
Run a free scan before you spend time on the steps above.
This breach put your details on data-broker sites
Because Real Estate Mogul exposed home addresses, this is one of the breaches that feeds people-search and data-broker sites. Those sites scrape leaked databases, combine them with public records, and republish the result as a searchable profile — which is how a single breach turns into a permanent public listing. Removal works, but brokers typically re-list within about four months, so it has to be repeated.
See our broker-by-broker removal guides →
How urgent is this now?
This breach is over 10 years old. Old credentials still cause harm — leaked passwords from a decade ago are still tried against new accounts every day.
Remember: a breach can’t be “un-leaked” — once a database is out, it exists in countless copies. The goal is to make the leaked data useless: change what can be changed, lock down what can’t, and remove what has been republished.
Frequently asked questions
What data was exposed in the Real Estate Mogul breach?
The Real Estate Mogul breach exposed home addresses, phone numbers, names and usernames, email addresses. Home addresses feed people-search and data-broker sites, which republish them publicly. They also make phishing far more convincing and, in the worst cases, enable real-world harassment.
How many people were affected by the Real Estate Mogul breach?
Around 307,768 accounts were exposed, making it a mid-sized breach.
What should I do if I had a Real Estate Mogul account?
Get your address removed from data brokers — they re-list roughly every four months, so this needs repeating. You can check whether your own email appears in this breach with a free Nullivo scan — no password required.
Breaches that exposed similar data
If the Real Estate Mogul breach affected you, these breaches exposed comparable information — worth checking too, since leaked datasets are routinely combined.