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CoStar Group

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CoStar Group, Inc.
Company typePublic
IndustryCommercial property
Founded1987; 37 years ago (1987)
FounderAndrew Florance
HeadquartersWashington, D.C.
Area served
  • Canada
  • France
  • Germany
  • Spain
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
Key people
RevenueIncrease US$2.46 billion (2023)
Increase US$369 million (2022)
Number of employees
6,152 (as of January 31, 2024)
Subsidiaries
Websitecostargroup.com
Footnotes / references
[1][dead link‍]

CoStar Group, Inc. is an American provider of information, analytics, and marketing services to the commercial property industry in North America and Europe. Founded in 1987 by Andrew C. Florance and based in Washington, D.C., the company has grown to include the online database CoStar and several online marketplaces, including Apartments.com and Homes.com.

History

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Origins

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CoStar Group was founded in 1987 by Andrew C. Florance in Washington, D.C., as one of the first companies that digitized and aggregated property data before the Internet became widely available. The following year, the company went public via an initial public offering on Nasdaq, raising $22.5 million.[2] In June 2004, the lawsuit CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc. became a landmark case in copyright law about the role of an Internet service provider in monitoring copyrighted content posted on its servers.[3] In October 2009, the company acquired a building from the Mortgage Bankers Association for $41.3 million, which now serves as the company's headquarters. The building had sold for $97 million two years earlier, with CoStar Group claiming that it had used its analytics data to determine the right time to buy.[4]

Growth and expansion

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Throughout the 2010s, CoStar Group expanded its footprint in the commercial property industry with a series of acquisitions in North America and Europe. In 2009, it acquired Property and Portfolio Research company Grecam, joining the company's existing Grecam service.[5] In 2012, it acquired the online marketing site LoopNet for $860 million.[6][7] With the acquisition, CoStar Group also took over the Loopnet properties BizBuySell and LandsofAmerica.[8] Two years later, the company acquired Apartments.com for $585 million,[9] as well as Apartment Finder the following year.[10]

From 2017 through 2020, the company acquired the online marketplaces Westside Rentals,[11] ForRent.com (previously owned by Dominion Enterprises),[12] Cozy Services,[13] Off Campus Partners,[14] and Ten-X;[15][16] in addition to the hotel research and analytics firm STR,[2] the residential mobile application provider Homesnap,[17] and the 3D spatial mapping company Matterport, the latter for $1.6 billion.[18][19] In April 2021, it acquired Homes.com, a prominent residential real-estate website, from Dominion Enterprises for $156 million in cash.[20]

Overseas, its European division acquired the German real-estate business data company Thomas Daily and the Spanish online marketplace and information provider Belbex in 2016.[21][22] From 2018 through 2023, it acquired the British online marketplace Realla,[23] the German real-estate data company Emporis,[24] the French online marketplace BureauxLocaux,[25] and the British property portal OnTheMarket.[26]

Other activities

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In 2019, CoStar Group announced that Oxford Economics would provide the economic data and forecasts used in its products.[27] The company came under fire in 2022 when Business Insider reported that over 29 current and former employees claimed to have been excessively monitored and micromanaged, including with unscheduled check-in video calls made by the company's IT department, as well as being publicly berated and arbitrarily fired in some cases.[28][29] The company made efforts to take down criticism of itself on various social media platforms. CoStar Group denied the allegations, contending that the discontent had stemmed from the company's high expectations.[28] In 2024, CoStar Group purchased an estimated $35 million worth of airtime at Super Bowl LVIII for four Super Bowl commercials advertising its subsidiaries Homes.com and Apartments.com, which The New York Times described as an effort to rival competitor services such as Zillow and Realtor.com.[30]

CoStar has been criticized for anticompetitive and monopolistic business practices, often using aggressive litigation and "public-relations warfare" to "push [competitors] to the brink of collapse or weaken them enough to make them soft targets for an acquisition".[31] In February 2024, a proposed consumer class action lawsuit was filed against CoStar in multiple states, accusing the company of a price-fixing conspiracy in which it conspired with a group of luxury hotel chains—including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, InterContinental, Loews, and Accor—to keep room rental prices artificially high by sharing competitively sensitive information through the company's STR reports. These allegations were based in part on insider information shared by an STR software engineer.[32]

Business

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CoStar Group provides commercial real estate information, analytics, and online marketplaces for real estate transactions. Its research services include online services and research for the rental home and hotel industry.[33]

As of October 2024, its subsidiaries include:

References

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  1. ^ CoStar Group (February 23, 2022). CoStar Group Form 10-K (Report). Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved March 4, 2022.[dead link‍]
  2. ^ a b c Rothstein, Ethan (October 2, 2019). "Andy Florance On Buying STR, WeWork's Failed IPO And What CoStar Buys Next". Bisnow. Archived from the original on March 20, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  3. ^ "ISP not liable for copyright violations even after review of content". Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. June 22, 2004. Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  4. ^ Hagerty, James R. (February 6, 2010). "Mortgage Bankers Association Sells Headquarters at Big Loss". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on March 23, 2016.
  5. ^ a b Kalette, Denise (July 21, 2009). "CoStar Acquires Property and Portfolio Research". National Real Estate Investor. Archived from the original on September 6, 2013. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  6. ^ Sernovitz, Daniel J. (April 30, 2012). "CoStar Group completes LoopNet deal". American City Business Journals. Archived from the original on May 4, 2012.
  7. ^ "CoStar Completes LoopNet Acquisition". National Real Estate Investor. May 1, 2012. Archived from the original on September 23, 2017.
  8. ^ a b c d Sernovitz, Daniel J. (August 18, 2014). "Blind ambition: CoStar's Andy Florance opens up about competition, sacrifice and those pesky Glassdoor rankings (Video)". Washington Business Journal. Archived from the original on August 5, 2014. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  9. ^ a b O'Connell, Jonathan (March 3, 2014). "CoStar Group buys Apartments.com for $585 million". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on March 3, 2014.
  10. ^ Sernovitz, Daniel J. (April 30, 2015). "CoStar makes another push into the digital apartments sphere with a $170M buy". Washington Business Journal. Archived from the original on May 22, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  11. ^ Ellingson, Annlee (February 2, 2017). "Westside Rentals finds new home at Apartments.com". L.A. Business First. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017.
  12. ^ a b Neibauer, Michael (February 20, 2018). "Growing CoStar to close its latest buy, this one for nearly $400M". American City Business Journals. Archived from the original on March 15, 2018.
  13. ^ Morphy, Erica (November 9, 2018). "CoStar Group Acquires Cozy Services Ltd., with Plans to Integrate its Innovative Renter Screening and Rent Payments Solutions into Apartments.com". GlobeSt.com. Archived from the original on February 13, 2019. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  14. ^ Neibauer, Michael (June 21, 2019). "CoStar buys again, this time in the off-campus student housing space". Washington Business Journal. Archived from the original on March 5, 2022. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  15. ^ a b Grant, Peter (May 14, 2020). "CoStar Acquires Ten-X in $190 Million Deal". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on May 14, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  16. ^ Lane, Ben (January 11, 2016). "Auction.com rebrands as Ten-X, the 'future of real estate'". HousingWire. Archived from the original on January 12, 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  17. ^ a b Grant, Peter (November 22, 2020). "CoStar to Buy Homesnap for $250 Million". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on November 23, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  18. ^ "Matterport, the Global Leader in 3D Digital Twins, to be Acquired by CoStar Group" (Press release). Matterport. April 22, 2024. Archived from the original on April 22, 2024. Retrieved April 22, 2024.
  19. ^ "CoStar Group to Acquire Matterport, the Global Leader in Immersive 3D Digital Twins and Artificial Intelligence for the Real Estate Industry That Makes Properties Intuitive and Interactive Online" (Press release). CoStar Group. April 22, 2024. Archived from the original on April 22, 2024. Retrieved April 22, 2024.
  20. ^ a b Dominguez, Liz (April 15, 2021). "CoStar Group to Acquire Homes.com for $156M". RISMedia. Archived from the original on April 15, 2021. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  21. ^ a b O'Connell, Jonathan (May 5, 2016). "CoStar Group buys Apartments.com for $585 million". S&P Global. Archived from the original on December 4, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  22. ^ a b Lima, Alexandre (March 16, 2017). "Belbex finalises its integration with CoStar Group". Iberian Property. Archived from the original on March 5, 2022. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  23. ^ a b Evans, Judith (October 12, 2018). "US real estate giant CoStar buys UK commercial property portal". Financial Times. ISSN 0307-1766. Archived from the original on March 21, 2022.
  24. ^ a b Solomont, E.B. (October 27, 2020). "CoStar plots international push with Emporis buy". The Real Deal. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  25. ^ a b "CoStar Group Acquires BureauxLocaux, a Leading Commercial Property Digital Marketplace in France" (Press release). October 1, 2021. Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved October 1, 2021 – via Business Wire.
  26. ^ Johnson, Katie (October 25, 2023). "CoStar acquires OnTheMarket for £100m". Today's Conveyancer. Archived from the original on March 18, 2024. Retrieved October 25, 2023.
  27. ^ "CoStar appoints Oxford Economics as data partner for new Investor product". Property Week. August 13, 2010. Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
  28. ^ a b Geiger, Daniel; Nicoll, Alex (February 22, 2022). "Inside the mass exodus at CoStar, real estate's biggest data firm, where 29 current and former staffers say the company surveilled and humiliated them". Business Insider. Archived from the original on February 22, 2022. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  29. ^ "Employee surveillance, humiliation and exodus at CoStar". The Real Deal. February 22, 2022. Archived from the original on February 22, 2022. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  30. ^ Kamin, Debra (February 12, 2024). "CoStar Group's Super Bowl Debut: Dan Levy, Heidi Gardner and Jeff Goldblum". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 12, 2024. Retrieved October 16, 2024.
  31. ^ Putzier, Konrad; Jeans, David; Bautista, Christian; Carvajal, Nancy C. "Search and destroy: How CoStar became a $15B juggernaut". The Real Deal. Archived from the original on October 4, 2023. Retrieved May 5, 2024.
  32. ^ Scarcella, Mike (February 21, 2024). "CoStar, luxury hotels hit with US consumer price-fixing lawsuit". Reuters. Archived from the original on February 23, 2024. Retrieved February 2, 2024.
  33. ^ "CoStar, Group Inc". Bloomberg L.P. Archived from the original on May 17, 2024. Retrieved March 4, 2022.
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  • Business data for CoStar Group, Inc.:
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