[HELP] A stupid Engineering student asking for help
Dear all,

I am a Mechanical Engineering student involved now in a Business project (for University) in which we were assigned companies and asked to "analyze" them. I was assigned with CoStar Group.

I am having issues to understand how such companies work. What do they sell? What it means to sell information? Who are the customers? Do they have competitors? Because I've seen them basically acquiring all the competitors.

Furthermore, I am asked to compute the market share of CoStar, and to do that I need to have estimates of the revenues of other companies in that sector. Are there other companies of the same importance of CoStar that can compete or is CoStar exerting a monopoly over this market?  


I would really appreciate answers!
[{"id": "j0e65p6", "text": "CoStar sells subscription services to Commercial Real Estate companies, underwriters and etc.  Think of it as a fancy directory of real estate owners, data about commercial assets, analytics about the area and asset and etc.  They also own other brand portals like LoopNet which sells CRE.\n\nThey do have competitors.  Reonomy is one and a few others. But they are the big dog and keep trying to acquire others like you mentioned.", "replies": [{"id": "j0fidyp", "text": "And who are the main customers? Like who is willing to pay hundreds of dollars of subscription for such data?", "replies": [{"id": "j0fs3jh", "text": "Their customers are commercial real estate brokers, commercial appraisers, leasing specialists, and investors who are personally large enough to justify paying for the service directly.  It's possible that big financial media companies may subscribe as well (to access the data for writing articles) but i don't know if they do.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "j0hod5b", "text": "Thousands.\n\nReal estate brokers, appraisers, and investors.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0e8r99", "text": "The subscriptions are immensely expensive. Hundreds of dollars a month minimum. It's almost completely obligatory to have a subscription if you work in any aspect of CRE.", "replies": [{"id": "j0fipth", "text": "Clear, thank you!", "replies": [{"id": "j0fiqp5", "text": "&gt;Clear, thank you!\n\nYou're welcome!", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0edfsj", "text": "Monopoly.  Their license cost is based on sf or number of assets than what you actually need. For example, you could have a 5 person shop with 10K units and they might charge you 50k even though only 2 analyst on your team use it. It\u2019s not good!!", "replies": [{"id": "j0fiol6", "text": "What is exactly intended with shopping with units? If you pay your subruscription technically you have access to all their data, right?", "replies": [{"id": "j0fn6yo", "text": "Yup, but only one individual has a license!! It\u2019s like your email, no one else can have the un &amp; pw!!", "replies": [{"id": "j0gs2cc", "text": "Thank you!!", "replies": [{"id": "j0gs3rq", "text": "&gt;Thank you!!\n\nYou're welcome!", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0efr3o", "text": "Yardi and Crexi compete with them for some extent", "replies": [{"id": "j0figzh", "text": "Thank you!\n\nEdit: Can JLL and CoreLogic be considered also their competitors? Or they deal with other stuff? If you know them or course", "replies": [{"id": "j0g76if", "text": "Maybe CoreLogic. JLL is a client.", "replies": [{"id": "j0grwad", "text": "Thank you!", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0gfydf", "text": "Think of costar as Bloomberg for CRE.  Investment banks use Bloomberg abs CRE folks use costar", "replies": [{"id": "j0gs0xj", "text": "Well to have such revenues I guess there are a lot of folks", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0gsjgh", "text": "If you can figure out out the number of commercial brokers in the US, then maybe have a 20 percent attach for owners / lenders, etc\u2026 that\u2019s your market share.  I am sure there has to be something online about the install base of costar.   Maybe say every 2k units in a given market is on costar license at 500 or 1K", "replies": [{"id": "j0gsuwb", "text": "What are these units? You mean licenses?", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0gw70p", "text": "Call costar and ask about their pricing\u2026. You will figure it out.  Pretend to be a customer!!!", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0h21ld", "text": "Costar as a company has different business units. They own apartments.com and biz buy sell and also loopnet. \n\nThey are in effect a listing company, fancy Craigslist, but really want to be a data company, google for buildings. \n\nThere are other listing companies like catalyst, but that is comparing google to ask Jeeves. \n\nThey essentially sell broker and landlord information back to their clients. Imagine having to pay Reddit to use Reddit, when Reddit is user generated content. \n\nMaybe vts or compstak as a competitor, or maybe crexi, but man. You picked like the worst company in the worst industry.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0ho4w4", "text": "An add-on to CoStar subscription is the ranking of your listings. The rankings are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum &amp; Diamond. \n\nI believe Gold-Diamond, CoStar will have reps come out &amp; take \"professional\" pictures, videos, drone shots of the property - in hopes of making your listing more enticing to potential tenants. It's not something you can sign up for a week or 2, they get you by making the minimum requirement somewhere in the ballpark 6-Months. Not entirely sure of the pricing, but I've heard Platinum is thousands of $ (for a single listing).", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0hoag7", "text": "CoStar is a monopoly. They sell information that every commercial real estate participant in the world needs.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0i4abe", "text": "**What do they sell?**\n\nA subscription for easy to access property and market level information.\n\n**Who are their customers?**\n\nBanks, life insurance companies, private equity funds, hedge funds, private real estate investors, brokers, and appraisers.\n\n**Who are their competitors?**\n\nReis.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "j0jn6e7", "text": "Costar is a publicly traded company so your answers could be answered either 1. In their annual or quarterly reports, all available online or 2. through analyst reports about the company and stock. Since you probably don\u2019t have a whole lot of experience with these I\u2019d start with seekingalpha.com and look up costars page there. It\u2019s a good amount of reading, but you\u2019ll have the in depth answers you\u2019re looking for.", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]