CoStar Group, Inc.

What does CoStar Group own?
CoStar commercial data, LoopNet, Apartments.com, Homes.com, Domain (Australia), Matterport, STR and other real estate data and marketplace brands.

Is CoStar publicly traded?
Yes. It trades on Nasdaq as CSGP and is an S&P 500 constituent, listing since 1998.

Who founded CoStar?
Andrew Florance founded it in 1987 while at Princeton. He remains CEO nearly four decades later.

Where is CoStar headquartered?
Arlington, Virginia, United States, with offices across the US and internationally.

Who owns CoStar?
It is a public company with institutional ownership. Founder Andrew Florance holds meaningful equity and runs it as CEO.

What is CoStar's revenue?
$3.25 billion in 2025, its 19th consecutive year of growth, split between the commercial segment ($1.79 billion) and marketplaces.

Did CoStar buy Matterport?
Yes. It completed the approximately $1.6 billion acquisition on February 28, 2025, integrating 3D capture technology into its marketplaces.

Does CoStar compete with Zillow?
In residential listings, yes: Homes.com challenges Zillow's dominance. In commercial data CoStar has no direct equivalent competitor at scale.

Andrew Florance founded CoStar in 1987 while a student at Princeton, with a premise that seems obvious now: real estate professionals needed a database, and he could build it. He moved to Washington DC, hired researchers to catalog buildings, and sold subscriptions to what became the industry's indispensable information source.

The company went public on Nasdaq in 1998, using the proceeds to expand nationally and internationally through the 2000s. Its data coverage became comprehensive: every commercial property, every tenant, every transaction, verified by researchers and analytics that made CoStar the default research tool for the entire commercial real estate industry.

The marketplace strategy emerged in the 2010s. The 2014 acquisition of Apartments.com for $585 million put CoStar into rental listings; the site grew to dominate its category. The 2021 purchase of Homes.com's parent for $1.6 billion moved it into residential sales listings, where it now challenges Zillow and Realtor.com.

The acquisition pattern continued: LoopNet in 2011, Land.com, BizBuySell, Ten-X, Domain in Australia in 2021, and Matterport in February 2025 for approximately $1.6 billion. Each deal added either data, traffic or technology that fed the integrated flywheel.

Matterport's acquisition was strategic in a new way: CoStar bought 3D capture technology to embed virtual tours across its marketplaces and to position spatial data as a differentiator. The deal faced FTC scrutiny over competition concerns before clearing.

The 2025 results validated the approach: revenue up strongly with the commercial segment, including LoopNet and the core data business, growing to $1.79 billion, while the marketplaces continued gaining share.

The founding story is unusual even by tech standards: Florance conceived the real estate database idea as a Princeton undergraduate, moved to Washington DC, and spent the early years convincing a skeptical industry that it needed a commercial property information service before building the research operation that made the data credible. The 1998 Nasdaq listing provided capital for the coverage expansion that made CoStar effectively compulsory for commercial real estate professionals.

The acquisition era built the modern portfolio. LoopNet's 2011 purchase for approximately 860 million dollars brought the dominant commercial listings marketplace. Apartments.com in 2014 for approximately 585 million dollars put it into residential rentals, where it built category leadership. STR in 2019 added hotel data; the Homes.com acquisition for approximately 1.6 billion dollars moved it into residential sales listings; Domain brought an Australian portal position.

The Homes.com strategy produced the industry's most aggressive marketing war: a sustained national advertising campaign including Super Bowl spots in 2024 and 2025 that pushed the portal toward parity with established residential players in traffic, a remarkable feat of spending against entrenched competition.

Matterport's February 2025 acquisition added spatial technology to the stack: the 3D capture company now feeds virtual tours into CoStar's marketplaces while positioning spatial data as a strategic asset for AI applications. The deal faced FTC scrutiny before clearing, a sign of the regulatory attention the group's accumulation now attracts.

CoStar has faced antitrust scrutiny: the FTC investigated the Matterport acquisition over competition concerns before clearing it. Its aggressive litigation against competitors, including suits against Zillow over Homes.com listings and against competitors using its data, has drawn criticism as weaponizing intellectual property.

The company's market dominance in commercial data has prompted periodic complaints about pricing power and contract terms from customers with few alternatives.