Costar's crusade
[{"id": "d61g3fz", "text": "I have rarely worked with a company I hate as much as Costar.  They are the necessary evil of corporate real estate.  They have attained their position not by having the best product or good service but by using their money to purchase any possible competitor so they are the only resource available.  They have the industry by the balls and they just keep increasing their prices and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  I pray for the day when they have an actual competitor, unfortunately if history is any indicator they will end up buying them in the end and we will be in the same position as before.", "replies": [{"id": "d61hil0", "text": "That's a sentiment felt by many in the industry.  I used to work for the Death....I mean CoStar back in the late 90s, early 2000s.  Although alluded to, if somewhat obliquely, has been the rise of startups gradually taking market share from them but it is on a very localized market-by-market basis.  Nonetheless being able to scale, as Florence has accomplished, will be rough considering his penchant has changed to litigation as opposed to innovation.  \n\nThe only thing CoStar lacks as far as I can see is effective CRM and deal management/facilitation.  I know Andy's wanted to create that since late '99/'00 (shortly after purchase of COMPS) when first launched CoStar Marketplace, who's predecessor was Deal Room or something to that effect, basically being able to market/negotiate/term/bind deals inside the CoStar framework, which was novel back then and becoming a reality now with the advent of Ten-X (fka Auction) and the like.  Surprisingly saw an article regarding the retooling of REthinkCRE to focus on linking into Salesforce.  As they are fresh off a new capital raise, I wonder if their capital investors are eyeing a potential sale to CoStar at some point in the future considering they've spent over $1B in acquisitions alone.  But that's my own conjecture....", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "d61hcew", "text": "Just shared this article with my group, great read!  Everybody here loves a good CoStar bashing", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "d62ivv3", "text": "Honestly it's only a matter of time before the behemoths of the past few decades get taken down by newer, better products. RE tech has begun to come of age in the last couple of years, and it's showing no signs of slowing down. \n\nCostar, Argus, etc. are going to have to either significantly improve their products or lower their prices (or both) if they want to maintain market share. ", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]