CoStar Group is primarily known for its dominance in commercial real estate data. But since 2014, it’s been eyeing supremacy in the residential space, too.
It has spent more than $2 billion acquiring residential portals, platforms and other tech since that time, and now might be on the cusp of its biggest play yet: It’s reportedly in talks to acquire Move Inc., the parent company of Realtor.com, from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
The deal would value Move at $3 billion, triple what Murdoch paid for it eight years ago.
What might all of this mean for the residential industry, and for brokers in particular? In the latest episode of Resi Rundown, TRD’s Hiten Samtani talks through the implications of the potential deal, from opening up lead-gen options for agents to CoStar CEO Andy Florance’s latest challenge to Zillow’s primacy.
“Florance has made clear his intent to oust Zillow from its market-leading perch,” Samtani says in the video above. “He has described the U.S. resi landscape as ‘oddly underdeveloped’ and said that his main focus — unlike Zillow, which rakes in money from advertising — would be to help agents market their listings.”
Watch the video to get the skinny on how the deal might play out, and be sure to tune in for more Resi Rundowns.