DMARC for real estate: Reduce transaction risk and protect PII
The real estate sector depends on trusted email communication between agents, clients, attorneys, and financial institutions. If attackers spoof your real estate agency’s domain, they can send convincing emails that look like they came from your organization. Leading to redirecting funds, harvesting personal data, and undermining trust at critical moments in the deal lifecycle.
DMARC for real estate overview:
- Real estate email is a prime target because it combines high-value payments, sensitive documents, urgent timelines, and lots of stakeholders.
- Domain spoofing is the big risk: If attackers can impersonate your agency’s domain, they can send believable emails that redirect funds or collect PII, damaging deals and customer trust.
- DMARC stops impersonation at the domain level by blocking unauthorized use of your “From” domain – once you move to full enforcement.
- The business impact of spoofing isn’t just security – it’s operational and reputational. It can lead to fraud losses, legal exposure, client churn, and reduced confidence.
- DMARC is the foundation, but when it’s paired with complementary standards, such as MTA-STS, real estate companies can strengthen end-to-end email security and reduce overall risk.
DMARC for real estate helps you:
- Prevent domain impersonation used in fake invoice and “updated banking details” scams
- Reduce wire fraud risk by blocking spoofed emails before they reach clients or partners
- Protect client PII by stopping spoofed emails that request IDs, salary slips, and financial documents
- Secure agent-to-client and agent-to-institution communication with domain-level authentication
- Reduces legal and liability exposure tied to impersonation incidents
Learn how Sendmarc helps protect real estate emails and reduce impersonation risk – without adding complexity for your teams.
Why DMARC for real estate matters
Real estate is consistently targeted because it combines high-value payments, sensitive documentation, and time pressure, with many workflows still coordinated over email.
The risk drivers that make real estate attractive to cybercriminals:
Money
movement
Deposits, down payments, escrow transfers, rent, commissions, and payoffs
Sensitive documentation
IDs, proof of address, salary slips, contracts, and statements
Multi-party communication
Clients, attorneys, and financial institutions
Distributed sender landscape
Agents, branches, franchises, and subdomains
Third-party
senders
CRMs, listing portals, e-signature tools, and property management platforms
Together, these conditions make real estate emails a high-value target for cybercriminals. If attackers can spoof your domain, they can send messages that look like they’re from your organization – requesting sensitive documents or changing payment instructions at exactly the wrong time.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) helps prevent that by blocking unauthorized use of your domain, protecting client communications, and reducing transaction risk.
How email impersonation disrupts real estate operations
Ignoring DMARC for real estate creates more than added risk; it introduces friction, rework, and loss of confidence when timing matters most.
Financial impact and trust
Wire fraud attempts and successful diversions can create immediate losses and long-term trust damage that impacts future deals. Real estate is referral-driven, and trust is hard to rebuild once a client believes an email came “from you.”
Process strain
Incident response slows transactions by triggering:
- Verification loops across multiple parties
- Urgent calls and escalations
- Reissuing documents and instructions
- Coordination with banks and legal teams
Even when funds are recovered, the operational cost can be significant.
Regulatory and legal exposure
Personally identifiable information (PII) exposure increases breach handling obligations and liability risk, especially when clients believe your agency was the source of a message.
Why a managed approach works better:
DMARC works best as a managed, maintained control because real estate sender ecosystems change frequently. New branches, new workflows, and new campaigns introduce new senders. Staying protected depends on maintaining continuous visibility and control.
Book a demo to see how a managed DMARC approach keeps protection in place as your sender landscape changes, continuously discovering new senders, guiding remediation, and moving you to enforcement safely without disrupting critical real estate email.
Real estate cyber risk by the numbers
These numbers help explain why real estate teams must invest in stronger email controls.
300+ incident & breaches in a year
70% of PII exposed
Over $173 million in losses
Sources: Verizon, FBI IC3
Common DMARC for real estate challenges
Implementing DMARC in real estate requires a practical approach, shaped by the sector’s complex and time-sensitive email environment.
Tool and platform complexity
Real estate sender ecosystems include many systems that send email “on behalf of” your domain:
- CRMs and lead platforms
- Listing and portal notifications
- E-signature tools
- Marketing and newsletter platforms
If these senders aren’t authenticated correctly, enforcement can cause legitimate email to fail, which can disrupt closings, delay payments, and create avoidable follow-ups for your team.
Critical communication windows
Real estate can’t afford delivery surprises during:
- Closing day communications
- Month-end rent reminders and receipts
- Renewal and lease change cycles
- Time-sensitive buyer and seller coordination
A managed, practical rollout accounts for these windows, so teams can move to enforcement without disrupting operations.
Third-party senders added quickly
New tools are often onboarded fast by operations, marketing, or leadership. Email sending is often enabled first, and authentication is handled later. That is often how “unknown senders” appear in DMARC reports.
The upside is that DMARC reporting gives you visibility into new and previously unseen senders early, so you can validate them and align SPF/DKIM before enforcement impacts their delivery.
How Sendmarc helps real estate companies enforce DMARC
Sendmarc helps implement DMARC for real estate organizations in a way that fits complex, shifting sender environments.
Scalable multi-domain management
Supports thousands of domains and high email volumes
Staged
enforcement
Moves you to quarantine and reject safely without disrupting critical email
Automation-ready reporting
Automatically processes DMARC reports and reduces manual workload
Advanced
analytics
Surfaces deliverability trends, authentication outcomes, and recurring failure patterns
Global
visibility
Provides real-time dashboards across domains and regions for consistent oversight
A layered approach to real estate email security
Using DMARC for real estate email protection is important, but effective defense relies on more than a single control. A layered approach that combines complementary standards helps reduce risk across the entire email process.
Together, these standards reduce impersonation risk, protect sensitive data in transit, and improve sender recognition. In an industry built on fast, trusted communication, this supports stronger client confidence, safer data handling, and clearer identification of legitimate emails.
Book a demo to see how Sendmarc helps set up DMARC for real estate teams, helping them protect transactions, safeguard client data, and build trust in every email.
What our customers have to say
Sendmarc's DMARC solution was a game-changer
Kim Sim
Chief Information Officer – Mr Price Group
Exceptional one-on-one support
“Centralizing compliance controls within the IT infrastructure has effectively reduced shadow IT instances while streamlining configurations. This has alleviated the burden on security specialists, allowing them to focus on core responsibilities. Furthermore, Sendmarc has provided exceptional one-on-one support, ensuring a seamless experience.”
Ashlen Naicker
Former Head of Digital and ICT
Sendmarc has been an invaluable partner on our journey to securing our email communications
“Their advanced DMARC solution has shielded our business from phishing attacks and email fraud while also providing us with unparalleled insights into our email traffic. Sendmarc’s powerful platform has ensured that only legitimate emails are sent on our behalf. Their user-friendly interface and expert support have made DMARC implementation seamless, even for our non-technical team members. The peace of mind Sendmarc provides is immeasurable, as we now know that our clients and stakeholders can trust the authenticity of our emails.”
Derek Middleton
Systems Engineer at the Way Forward IT
Sophisticated & flexible platform
“Sophisticated platform, knowledgeable staff, flexibility to adjust and tweak as needed.”
Tristan Warner
Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer at eNerds
Passionate & great team to work with
“They live and breathe their mission to make the internet safer. Simple and feature-rich solution that’s easily understandable.”
Shailendra Harri
Business Development Manager at CHM Vuwani
Phenomenal product & team
“Sendmarc offers very powerful and simple solutions to very real problems our customers face. Their technology is excellent and their team is among the best in the industry.”
Brian Timperley
Co-Founder and CEO at Turrito Networks
World-class technology, even better team
“Sendmarc solves a real business problem and is an easy sale. They’re passionate about their mission to make the internet a safer place. The platform’s easy to use, and implementation is simple. The team manages the entire solution to ensure 100% success and has a 90-day guarantee to get your domain to 5 out of 5.”
Brian Tarr
CEO at Data Eco
Sendmarc cares about us
“We’ve had the privilege of working with the Sendmarc team for a few months. They are highly responsive and truly curious. They want to make sure things are right and they care about us as a partner.”
Matthew Bookspan
CEO at Blacktip IT Services
DMARC for real estate FAQs
Why is DMARC needed in the real estate sector?
DMARC is needed in the real estate sector because criminals can spoof your domain to impersonate agents or offices and send convincing emails that request documents or change payment instructions. DMARC helps block unauthorized use of your domain, reducing impersonation that can lead to data harvesting and transaction fraud.
Will DMARC block legitimate emails from our CRM, listing portals, or e-sign tools?
DMARC won’t block legitimate emails when third-party tools are correctly authenticated with SPF and/or DKIM. Any new platform should be reviewed and approved first, then authenticated before you move to enforcement.
What DMARC policy should a real estate business use?
The DMARC policy a real estate company should use is p=none initially (monitoring only), moving up to p=quarantine and p=reject as you validate legitimate senders.
Will DMARC stop every kind of wire fraud attempt?
DMARC won’t stop every kind of wire fraud attempt, but it does stop a common tactic used in payment diversion: Spoofing your exact domain in the visible “From” address. By making it harder to send emails that look like they came from your organization, DMARC reduces the chance that clients and partners act on fraudulent payment instructions.
And when you combine DMARC with MTA-STS, you also reduce the risk of email interception in transit by enforcing encrypted delivery between servers, making it harder for attackers to tamper with or read messages between systems.
How do we avoid email disruption during closings and month-end cycles?
You avoid email disruption during closings and month-end cycles by rolling DMARC out in stages and prioritizing critical senders first. Start with monitoring, identify every legitimate sender, fix SPF and DKIM alignment issues, then move gradually to quarantine and reject so real estate emails stay reliable when timing matters most.