Company type | Public |
---|---|
| |
Industry | |
Founded | 1987 |
Founder | Andrew Florance |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
Area served | United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain |
Key people | Andrew C. Florance (president & CEO) Scott T. Wheeler (CFO) Michael R. Klein (chairman) |
Revenue | US$2.18 billion (2022) |
US$369 million (2022) | |
Number of employees | 5,653 (January 31, 2023) |
Subsidiaries | |
Website | costargroup |
Footnotes /references [1] |
CoStar Group, Inc. is a Washington, DC-based provider of information, analytics, and marketing services to the commercial property industry in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain. [1] Founded in 1987 by Andrew C. Florance, the company has grown to include the online database CoStar and many online marketplaces, including Apartments.com, Homes.com, LoopNet, Lands of America, and BizBuySell.
CoStar Group was founded in 1987 by Andrew C. Florance in Washington, D.C. [2] It was reportedly one of the first companies that digitized and aggregated property data before the Internet was widely available. [2]
In 1998, the company became a public company via an initial public offering on the NASDAQ, raising $22.5 million. [2]
In 2004, CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc. became a landmark case in copyright law about the role of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in monitoring copyrighted content posted on its servers. [3]
In October 2009, the company acquired a building in Washington, D.C., now its headquarters, from the Mortgage Bankers Association for $41.3 million. The building sold for $79 million two years earlier, and the company claims it used its analytics data to know the right time to buy. [4]
In April 2012, CoStar Group acquired the online marketing site LoopNet for $860 million. [5] [6] With the acquisition, CoStar Group also acquired Loopnet properties BizBuySell and LandsofAmerica.com. [7]
In April 2014, the company acquired Apartments.com for $585 million. [8]
In May 2016, CoStar Group's European subsidiary CoStar Europe Ltd acquired German real estate business data company Thomas Daily. [9]
In April 2015, the company acquired Apartment Finder for $170 million. [10] In July, the company acquired Belbex, an online marketplace and information provider for commercial property based in Spain.
In February 2017, the company acquired Westside Rentals. [11] In March, the company acquired Spanish lending information platform Belbex. [12]
In February 2018, the company acquired ForRent.com from Dominion Enterprises for $350 million in cash and $35 million in stock. [13] In October, the company acquired Realla.co.uk an online marketplace for commercial property based in the United Kingdom. [14] In November, the company acquired Cozy Services for $68 million. [15]
In February 2019, the company announced that Oxford Economics would provide the economic data and forecasts used in CoStar's products. [16] In June, it was announced that CoStar Group would acquire Off Campus Partners, LLC, an online marketplace for off-campus student housing. [17] In October, it was announced that CoStar Group would acquire hotel research and analytics firm STR, Inc, for $450 million. [2]
In May 2020, CoStar announced it acquired online real estate platform Ten-x, formerly Auction.com, for $190 million. [18] [19] In October, CoStar Group bought Germany-based real estate data company Emporis. [20] In November, it was announced that CoStar Group acquired Homesnap, a residential mobile application provider, for $250 million in cash. [21]
In April 2021, it was announced that CoStar Group acquired Homes.com, a residential real estate website from Dominion Enterprises, for $156 million in cash. [22]
In October 2021, CoStar announced it was acquiring BureauxLocaux, a commercial property digital marketplace in France. [23]
In October 2023, it was announced CoStar Group had acquired the London-headquartered property portal, OnTheMarket for £100 million. [24]
On April 22, 2024, it was announced that CoStar Group would acquire Matterport, a 3D spatial mapping company, for a cash and stock transaction deal at approximately US$1.6 billion. [25] [26]
In February 2022, CoStar Group came under criticism when American news website 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. Additional criticism included reports of employees being publicly berated and arbitrarily fired in some cases. [27] [28] The company also reportedly made efforts to take down criticism of itself on various social media platforms. [27] The company denied the complaints, claiming that discontent came from the company's high expectations. [27]
In February 2024, a proposed consumer class action lawsuit was filed against CoStar, accusing the company of a price-fixing conspiracy, in which it allegedly conspired with a group of hotel operators, including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, InterContinental Hotels, Loews, and the U.S. subsidiary of Accor, to keep room rental prices artificially high by sharing competitively sensitive information through the company's Smith Travel Research (STR) reports. [29] The allegations were based partly on information from a software engineer at STR, a subsidiary of CoStar. [29]
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. [30]
Its subsidiaries include the following:
Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate business has actively acquired commercial real estate. Blackstone is also active in credit, infrastructure, hedge funds, insurance, secondaries, and growth equity. As of June 2023, the company's total assets under management were approximately US$1 trillion, making it the largest alternative investment firm globally.
Investcorp is a global manager of alternative investment products, for private and institutional clients. Founded in Bahrain in 1982, the firm has offices in United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, India, China, Japan and Singapore. Investcorp's principal client base is in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, but it also has a growing base of institutional clients in North America, Europe, and Asia.
PREIT (Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust) is a privately held company that owns and develops shopping centers mostly in the Mid-Atlantic states.
Home Properties was a real estate management company that owned, operated, acquired, and renovated apartment communities. As of December 31, 2014, the company owned 42,107 apartment units, all of which were in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Long Island, Northern New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, and Florida. The company was acquired by Lone Star Funds in 2015 and dissolved.
CBRE Group, Inc. is an American commercial real estate services and investment firm. The abbreviation CBRE stands for Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. It is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm.
Zillow Group, Inc., or simply Zillow, is an American tech real-estate marketplace company that was founded in 2006 by Rich Barton, Zillow's current CEO, and Lloyd Frink, former Microsoft executives and founders of Microsoft spin-off Expedia; Spencer Rascoff, a co-founder of Hotwire.com; David Beitel, Zillow's current chief technology officer; and Kristin Acker, Zillow's current technology leadership advisor.
Move, Inc. is a real estate listing company based in Santa Clara, California. The company operates the Move Network of real estate websites, the largest of which is Realtor.com. Move has a longstanding partnership with the National Association of Realtors, the real estate industry's largest trade association, for operating Realtor.com.
Equity Residential is a United States-based publicly traded real estate investment trust that invests in apartments.
REA Group Ltd and its subsidiary companies, known as the REA Group, make up a global online real estate advertising company. REA Group is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, with subsidiary offices in Wanchai, Hong Kong and Gurugram, India.
Thomas Properties Group was a real estate investment trust based in City National Plaza in Los Angeles, California.
Regency Centers Corporation is a real estate investment trust based in Jacksonville, Florida and is one of the largest operators of shopping centers with grocery stores as anchor tenants. As of October 21, 2020, the company owned 415 properties comprising 56 million square feet of space. Notable properties owned by the company include Serramonte Center and a 30% interest in Village District.
HomeServices of America is the United States' largest residential real estate services company, based on closed transactions. The company provides real estate brokerage services, mortgage loan origination, franchising, title insurance/escrow and closing services, home warranties, property insurance, casualty insurance, and relocation services.
LoopNet is an online marketplace for commercial property, primarily providing commercial property listings for sale and for lease in the United States and is currently owned by commercial property data company CoStar Group.
Starwood Capital Group is an investment firm headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida. It is managed by Barry Sternlicht. It was co-founded by Sternlicht and Robert Faith in 1991. In 1993, Faith left Starwood to found Greystar Real Estate Partners.
Realtor.com is a real estate listings website operated by the News Corp subsidiary Move, Inc. and based in Santa Clara, California. It is the second most visited real estate listings website in the United States as of 2021, with over 100 million monthly active users.
HomeAway was a vacation rental marketplace. It operated through 50 websites in 23 languages through which it offered rentals of cabins, condos, castles, villas, barns, and farmhouses.
STR, Inc. is a subsidiary of CoStar Group that provides market data on the hotel industry worldwide, including supply and demand and market share data. The company has a corporate headquarters in Hendersonville, Tennessee, an international headquarters in London, England and offices in Italy, Dubai, Brazil, Singapore, Tokyo, Jakarta, Sydney, and Beijing.
HomeLight is a real estate technology company founded in San Francisco, CA and based in Scottsdale, AZ.
Opendoor Technologies Inc. is an online company that buys and sells residential real estate. Headquartered in San Francisco, it makes instant cash offers on homes through an online process, makes repairs on the properties it purchases and relists them for sale. It also provides mobile application-based home buying services along with financing. As of November 2021, the company operates in 44 markets in the US.
Matterport Inc. is an American 3D spatial mapping company that is currently headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company was founded in 2011 as a private startup and subsequently merged with a special-purpose acquisition company in 2021 to commence public trading on the Nasdaq. The current CEO is R.J. Pittman.