Niki Rapattoni

Niki Rapattoni's death was first reported on 8 October 2026 by the real estate technology blog Vendor Alley, and Rapattoni Corporation announced it on 9 October, giving her age as 86. The exact date and place of death and the cause were not made public.

Ralph Hoover, the company's President and Chief Operating Officer, said her positive spirit and can-do attitude inspired everyone around her, especially as she battled health challenges over the past few years. "She had an extraordinary ability to see what needed to be done and then make it happen," he said. "She lived by the simple principle of doing the right thing, and she never stopped moving forward."

In lieu of flowers, the family asked supporters to donate to the couple's scholarship fund at Chaffey High School. No memorial service details had been announced.

Niki Rapattoni grew up during the Second World War and, according to the family memoir she later wrote, moved 11 times before high school. She attended Chaffey High School in Ontario, California, where she and Andy Rapattoni were high school sweethearts in the 1950s. She graduated from the University of Southern California and worked as a dental hygienist.

Niki and Andy Rapattoni founded Rapattoni Corporation on 17 August 1970, after Andy left Realtron Corporation, described as the first computerized real estate multiple listing service vendor in the world. For the company's first 12 years she kept working as a dental hygienist while helping build the business, then joined it full time.

The company grew from MLS software into association management systems, integrated website services, hosting and technical support for Realtor associations. She managed nearly every aspect of its operations over more than 50 years, from sales and accounting to marketing and human resources, and in 2008 was named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women in Real Estate by the Active Rain Real Estate Network.

After Andy's death in April 2015 she became Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. The company celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2020, launched Connect Dashboard and Atlas Tax in 2021 and Magic+ AMS in 2022, and came to serve associations representing more than 80 percent of the nation's Realtors. It remained one of the few independent MLS system vendors. In 2023 she led the company through a ransomware attack that took it offline for nearly two weeks.

She was married to Andy Rapattoni until his death in 2015. Her family described her as a talented athlete and artist who co-founded and led a championship adult precision ice skating team, The Fabulous Forties. She was a photographer and writer, publishing the children's book Fur-Faced Friends with her grandchildren in 2013.

She and Andy were patrons of the arts, funding small theater groups across Southern California and establishing the Ralph Rapattoni Memorial Watercolor Scholarship at Cabrillo College in Santa Cruz and an annual drama scholarship at Chaffey High School. She volunteered with the Children's Service Auxiliary of Ventura County. She was survived by her sister, Anita Lucas, her son, Nicholas Rapattoni, his wife and four grandchildren.

Rapattoni Corporation, which she co-founded and ran for more than five decades, became one of the main software providers behind American Realtor associations and multiple listing services, and one of the few to stay independent. The company said she would be remembered for her remarkable energy, determination and positive spirit, as a woman who believed problems could be solved, people should be treated fairly and the right thing was always worth doing. Scholarships she and her husband founded continue at Chaffey High School and Cabrillo College.