Item 1. Business

In this report, the words “we,” “our,” “us,” “CoStar” or the “Company” refer to CoStar Group, Inc. and its direct and indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. This report also refers to our websites, but information contained on those sites is not part of this report.

CoStar Group, Inc., a Delaware corporation, founded in 1987, is the number one provider of information, analytics and online marketplaces to the commercial real estate industry in the United States (“U.S.”) and United Kingdom (“U.K.”) based on the fact that we offer the most comprehensive commercial real estate database available; have the largest research department in the industry; own and operate leading online marketplaces for commercial real estate and apartment listings in the U.S. based on the numbers of unique visitors and site visits per month; and provide more information, analytics and marketing services than any of our competitors. We have created and compiled a standardized platform of information, analytics and online marketplace services where industry professionals and consumers of commercial real estate, including apartments, and the related business communities, can continuously interact and facilitate transactions by efficiently accessing and exchanging accurate and standardized real estate-related information. Our service offerings span all commercial property types, including office, retail, industrial, multifamily, commercial land, mixed-use and hospitality. We manage our business geographically in two operating segments, with our primary areas of measurement and decision-making being North America, which includes the U.S. and Canada, and International, which primarily includes Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. On October 22, 2019, we acquired STR, Inc. and STR Global, Ltd. (together with STR, Inc., "STR"), which provides benchmarking and analytics for the hospitality industry. See Note 4 to the accompanying Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part IV of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of this acquisition.

Strategy

Our strategy is to provide industry professionals and consumers of commercial real estate and apartments with critical knowledge to explore and complete transactions by offering the most comprehensive, timely and standardized information on commercial real estate and apartments and the right tools to be able to effectively utilize that information. Over time, we have expanded, and we continue to expand, our services for commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces in an effort to continue to meet the needs of the industry as it grows and evolves.

Our standardized platform includes the most comprehensive proprietary database in the industry; the largest research department in the industry; proprietary data collection, information management and quality control systems; a large in-house product development team; a broad suite of web-based information, analytics and online marketplace services; a large team of analysts and economists; and a large, diverse base of clients. Our database has been developed and enhanced for more than 30 years by a research department that makes thousands of daily database updates. In addition to our internal efforts to grow the database, we have obtained and assimilated a significant number of proprietary databases. Our comprehensive commercial real estate database powers our information services, sources data used in our analytic services and provides content for most of our online marketplace services. Our ability to utilize the same commercial real estate information across our standardized platform creates efficiencies in operations and improves data quality for our customers.

We deliver our comprehensive commercial real estate information content to our U.S. and certain customers in Europe primarily via an integrated suite of online service offerings that includes information about space available for-lease, comparable sales information, information about properties for-sale, tenant information, Internet marketing services, analytical capabilities, information for clients’ websites, information about industry professionals and their business relationships, data integration and industry news. We also operate complementary online marketplaces for commercial real estate listings and apartment rentals. We strive to cross-sell our services to our customers in order to best suit their needs.

Information about our revenues, long-lived assets and total assets derived from and located in foreign countries is included in Notes 2, 3 and 14 of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Revenues; net income (loss) before interest and other income (expense), income taxes, depreciation and amortization (“EBITDA”); and total assets and liabilities for each of our segments are set forth in Notes 3 and 14 to our consolidated financial statements. Information about risks associated with our foreign operations is included in “Item 1A. Risk Factors” and “Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

We have five flagship brands - CoStar*®, LoopNet®, Apartments.comTM, BizBuySell®* and LandsofAmericaTM, which are accessible via the Internet and through our mobile applications. Our subscription-based services consist primarily of CoStar Suite*®* services, which include information, analytics and online marketplace services offered to the commercial real estate industry and related professionals. CoStar Suite*®* is sold as a platform of service offerings consisting of CoStar Property Professional®, CoStar

COMPS Professional® and CoStar Tenant®, and is our largest service offering in our North America and International operating segments.

Our LoopNet subscription-based, online marketplace enables commercial property owners, landlords, and brokers to list properties for-sale or for-lease and to submit detailed information about property listings. Commercial real estate agents, buyers and tenants use LoopNet extensively to search for available property listings that meet their criteria.

Apartments.comTM is part of our network of apartment marketing sites, which also includes ApartmentFinder.comTM, ForRent.com®, ApartmentHomeLiving.comTM, WestsideRentals.com*®*, AFTER55.com®, CorporateHousing.comTM, ForRentUniversity.com®, Apartamentos.comTM, which is our apartment-listing site offered exclusively in Spanish, and OffCampusPartners.com, which we acquired on June 12, 2019, and which provides student housing marketplace content and powers off campus housing sites for many universities across the U.S. Our apartment marketing network of subscription-based services offers renters a searchable database of apartment listings and provides property owners, professional property management companies and landlords with an advertising destination. Our apartment marketing network draws on and leverages CoStar’s multifamily database, which contains detailed information on apartment properties and is designed to meet renter preferences and demands, in order to drive traffic to those sites and attract advertisers who prefer to advertise on heavily trafficked apartment websites. Our network of apartment marketing sites provides a comprehensive selection of rentals, information on actual availabilities and rents, and in-depth data on neighborhoods, including restaurants, nightlife, history, schools and other facts important to renters. To help renters find the information that meets their needs, we have sites that also offer innovative search tools such as the PolygonTM Search tool, which allow renters to specifically define the area in which they want to find an apartment and Plan Commute tools, which allow renters to search property listings that meet their transportation needs. We also offer complementary services to the apartment industry, including the ability for renters to apply for rentals online, and for landlords to receive applications, screen tenants, and process rental payments and lease renewals.

Our BizBuySell services, which include BizQuest® and FindaFranchise, provide an online marketplace for businesses and franchises for-sale. Our LandsofAmerica services, which include LandAndFarm and LandWatch®, provide an online marketplace for rural lands for-sale and are also accessible via our Land.com domain.

We provide other services that complement those offered through our five flagship brands. These include real estate and lease management solutions, lease administration and abstraction services, through our CoStar Real Estate Manager service offerings; market research, consulting and analysis, portfolio and debt analysis, and management and reporting capabilities, through our CoStar Investment Analysis and CoStar Risk Analytics service offerings; and benchmarking and analytics for the hospitality industry through our STR service offerings.

Our services are typically distributed to our clients under subscription-based license agreements that renew automatically, a majority of which have a term of at least one year. Upon renewal, many of the subscription contract rates may change in accordance with contract provisions or as a result of contract renegotiations. To encourage clients to use our services regularly, we generally charge a fixed monthly amount for our subscription-based services rather than charging fees based on actual system usage or number of paid clicks. Depending on the type of service, contract rates are generally based on the number of sites, number of users, organization size, the client's business focus, geography, the number and types of services to which a client subscribes, the number of properties a client advertises and the prominence and placement of a client's advertised properties in the search results. Our subscription clients generally pay contract fees on a monthly basis, but in some cases may pay us on a quarterly or annual basis. We generally see higher sales of Apartments.com listing services during the peak summer rental season and higher CoStar suite sales towards the end of the year, however sales fluctuate from year-to-year and revenue is not generally seasonal because our services are typically sold on a subscription basis.

Expansion and Growth

Acquisitions

We have expanded and continue to expand the coverage and depth of our information, analytics and online marketplace services. In addition to organic growth, we have grown our business through strategic acquisitions. Most recently, on June 12, 2019, we acquired Off Campus Partners, LLC (“OCP”), a provider of student housing marketplace content and technology to U.S. universities, and on October 22, 2019, we acquired STR, a global provider of benchmarking and analytics for the hospitality industry. We continue to integrate our recent acquisitions and the services they offer into our CoStar network. See Note 4 to the accompanying Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part IV of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of these acquisitions.

On February 11, 2020, we agreed to acquire, for $588 million in cash, all the equity interests of RentPath, as reorganized following an internal restructuring pursuant to and under the joint chapter 11 plan of reorganization of RentPath and certain of its subsidiaries. Closing of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including the expiration or termination of any applicable waiting period under applicable antitrust laws and approval by the bankruptcy court. RentPath is a provider of digital marketing solutions for rental properties through a network of Internet listing websites, including Rent.com, ApartmentsGuide.com, Rentals.com and LiveLovely.com. See Note 19 to the accompanying Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part IV of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of this acquisition.

Development, Investments and Expansion

We are committed to supporting, improving and enhancing our information, analytics and online marketplace solutions, including expanding and improving our offerings for property owners, property managers and renters. We expect to continue our software development efforts to improve existing services, introduce new services, integrate and cross-sell services, and expand and develop supporting technologies for our research, sales and marketing organizations.

We evaluate potential changes to our service offerings from time to time in order to better align the services we offer with customers’ needs. Further, in some cases, when integrating and coordinating our services and assessing industry and client needs, we may decide to combine, shift focus from, de-emphasize, phase out, or eliminate a service that, among other things, overlaps or is redundant with other services we offer. In the event that we eliminate or phase out particular service offerings, we may experience reduced revenues and earnings. The decision to eliminate or phase out a service offering may also ultimately result in increased revenues and earnings from sales of other services we offer in lieu of the eliminated or phased out services. However, we cannot predict with certainty the amount or timing of any reductions in revenues and earnings or subsequent increases in revenues and earnings, if any, resulting from the elimination or phasing out of any service offering.

On November 18, 2018, we acquired Cozy Services, Ltd. (“Cozy”), a leading provider of online rental solutions offering a broad spectrum of services to both landlords and tenants. We continue to integrate Cozy's online rental and payments technology into the Apartments.com platform, creating an integrated online rental solution. The new platform allows renters to apply for-leases online, for landlords to run tenant credit and background checks and make and process online payments. In 2019, we completed the integration of Realla Ltd. (“Realla”), the operator of a commercial property listings and data management platform that we acquired in October 2018, with our CoStar UK operations. A single point of data entry now allows our clients to display their commercial real estate listings through the CoStar Suite service offering and to make them visible to prospective tenants and investors through Realla’s marketing portal. Over time, we plan to integrate STR data and services with CoStar Suite to create new products and services for our customers. We plan to drive international expansion, in part, through STR's global operations and to apply STR's benchmarking expertise to other commercial real estate segments served by CoStar.

We believe that our integration efforts and continued investments in our services, including acquisitions and expansion of our existing service offerings, have created a platform for long-term revenue growth. We expect these investments to result in further penetration of our subscription-based services and the successful cross-selling of our services to customers in existing markets.

We have invested in the expansion and development of our field sales force to support the growth and expansion of our company and our service offerings, and plan to continue to invest in, evaluate and strategically position our sales force as the Company continues to develop and grow. Specifically, we continue to invest in marketing our services, as well as in our research operations to support continued growth of our information and analytics offerings to meet the growing content needs of our clients. We plan to significantly increase our investment in Apartments.com marketing in 2020, including search engine marketing and TV and digital video advertising. While we believe the investments we make in our business create a platform for growth, those investments may reduce our profitability and adversely affect our near-term financial position.

Industry Overview

The market for commercial real estate information and analysis is vast based on the variety, volume and value of transactions related to commercial real estate. Each transaction has multiple participants and multiple information requirements, and in order to facilitate transactions, industry participants must have extensive, accurate and current information and analysis. Members of the commercial real estate and related business community require daily access to current data such as space availability, properties for-sale, rental units available, rental rates, vacancy rates, tenant movements, sales comparables, supply, new construction, absorption rates and other important market developments to carry out their businesses effectively. Market research (including historical and forecast conditions) and applied analytics are instrumental to the success of commercial real estate industry participants. There is a strong need for an efficient marketplace, where commercial real estate professionals can exchange information, evaluate opportunities using standardized data and interpretive analyses, and interact with each other on a continuous basis.

A large number of parties involved in the commercial real estate and related business community make use of the services we provide in order to obtain information they need to conduct their businesses, including:

•	Sales and leasing brokers	•	Government agencies
•	Property owners	•	Mortgage-backed security issuers
•	Property managers	•	Appraisers
•	Design and construction professionals	•	Pension fund managers
•	Real estate developers	•	Reporters
•	Real estate investment trust managers	•	Tenant vendors
•	Investment and commercial bankers	•	Building services vendors
•	Mortgage bankers	•	Communications providers
•	Mortgage brokers	•	Insurance companies’ managers
•	Retailers	•	Institutional advisors
•	Hospitality owners	•	Investors and asset managers

The commercial real estate and related business community historically operated in an inefficient marketplace because of the fragmented approach to gathering and exchanging information within the marketplace. Various organizations, including hundreds of brokerage firms, directory publishers and local research companies, collected data on specific markets and developed software to analyze the information they independently gathered. This highly fragmented methodology resulted in duplication of efforts in the collection and analysis of information, excessive internal cost and the creation of non-standardized data containing varying degrees of accuracy and comprehensiveness, resulting in a formidable information gap.

The creation and maintenance of a standardized information platform for commercial real estate requires infrastructure including a standardized database, accurate and comprehensive research capabilities, experienced analysts, easy to use technology and intensive participant interaction. By combining our extensive database, researchers, our experienced team of analysts and economists, technological expertise and broad customer base, we believe that we have created such a platform.

The apartment rental advertising industry serves property managers and owners who are tasked with finding renters to occupy vacant apartments, as well as renters who are searching for their next home. Property managers have several options at their disposal, including their own websites, drive-by and outdoor advertising, traditional classified ads, free online listing services, search engine marketing and Internet listings services (“ILS”), like Apartments.com and the network of apartment listing websites we own and operate. Many apartment ILS websites feature only the rental availabilities that larger property owners pay to advertise, resulting in a poor user experience in which the renter’s search criteria return either limited or no results, irrelevant results or stale results that do not represent actual availabilities.

We believe that consumers expect accurate, actionable and comprehensive apartment rental information. Our apartment ILS websites include renter-focused features like the ability to filter search results according to various criteria (e.g., commute time to work); professional images of the properties, including immersive videos and 3-D interactive models; custom neighborhood profiles; and tenant reviews. Our network of apartment listing websites draws on our multifamily database and includes researched and verified information. We proactively gather information on available rentals to improve the accuracy of the listings on our apartment ILS websites, including real time unit-level availability, current pricing, and rent specials. We have continually invested in our network to improve the features and services offered to property managers and website users. Recent additions include: dynamic lead forms that provide more information about prospective residents, a reporting suite that provides customers with rent comparables, making rent trends information publicly available and free digital ad retargeting, and integrated online rental solutions, including lease applications, and tenant credit and background checks. We believe that we have created and maintain easily searchable apartment ILS websites with a comprehensive selection of rentals, information on actual rental availabilities and rents, and in-depth data on neighborhoods, as well as easy to use and actionable tools for the rental process.

CoStar’s Comprehensive Database

CoStar has spent more than 30 years building and acquiring databases of commercial real estate information, which includes information on leasing, sales, comparable sales, tenants, and demand statistics, as well as digital images. This highly complex database is comprised of hundreds of data fields, tracking such categories as location, site and zoning information, building characteristics, space and unit availability, tax assessments, ownership, sales and lease comparables, space requirements, number of retail stores, number of listings, mortgage and deed information, for-sale and for-lease listings, income and expense histories,

tenant names, lease expirations, contact information, historical trends, demographic information and retail sales per square foot. The database also includes building photographs, aerial photographs, 3D virtual tours, plat maps and floor plans.

CoStar Research

Research Department. Our research professionals undergo an extensive training program so that we can maintain consistent research methods and processes throughout our research department. Our researchers collect and analyze commercial real estate information through phone calls, e-mails and Internet updates, in addition to field inspections, public records review, news monitoring and third-party data feeds. We have also set up direct feeds from larger apartment sites and have put in place an automated system that compiles information sourced from the Internet in order to provide the most up-to-date information on rental availabilities.

Our researchers are responsible for maintaining the accuracy and reliability of our database information. As part of their update process, researchers develop cooperative relationships with industry professionals that allow them to gather useful information. Because of the importance commercial real estate professionals place on our data and our prominent position in the industry, many of these professionals routinely take the initiative and proactively report available space and transactions through our on-line tool, Marketing Center, or directly to our researchers.

CoStar's field research effort includes physical inspection of properties in order to research new availabilities, find additional property inventory, new construction, collect tenant information, verify existing information, photograph properties and create high quality videos of interior spaces (including walk-through videos and 3D virtual tours), amenities and exterior features of properties. CoStar utilizes high-tech, field research vehicles primarily within North America and Europe. A significant majority of these vehicles are customized, energy efficient hybrid cars that are equipped with computers, Global Positioning System tracking software, high resolution digital cameras and handheld laser instruments to precisely measure buildings and geo-code and position them on digital maps. Each CoStar vehicle uses wireless technology to track and transmit field data. A typical site inspection consists of photographing the building, measuring the building, geo-coding the building, capturing “for-sale” or “for-lease” sign information, counting parking spaces, assessing property condition and construction, and gathering tenant information. Field researchers also canvass properties, collecting tenant data suite-by-suite. CoStar also utilizes a low-flying airplane and a fleet of drones to conduct aerial research of commercial real estate. We place researchers on the low-flying aircraft to scout additional commercial developments and take aerial photographs and videos. Our U.S. drone operators are Federal Aviation Administration certified and trained to capture aerial photographs and videos of commercial real estate. Our drone operators in the U.K. and Canada are certified and trained to Civil Aviation Authority standards with a permission for commercial operations pending.

Data and Image Providers. We license a small portion of our data and images from public record providers and third-party data sources. Licensing agreements with these entities allow us to use a variety of commercial real estate information, including property ownership, tenant information, demographic information, maps, aerial photographs and 3D virtual apartment tours of apartment communities, all of which enhance various CoStar services. These license agreements generally grant us a non-exclusive license to use the data and images in the creation and supplementation of our information, analytics and online marketplaces.

Management and Quality Control Systems. Our research processes include automated and non-automated controls to ensure the integrity of the data collection process. A large number of automated data quality tests check for potential errors, including occupancy date conflicts, available square footage greater than building area, typical floor space greater than land area and expired leases. We also monitor changes to critical fields of information to ensure all information is kept in compliance with our standard definitions and methodology. Our non-automated quality control procedures include:

•	Calling our information sources on recently updated properties to re-verify information;

•	Performing periodic research audits and field checks to determine if we correctly canvassed buildings;

•	Providing training and retraining to our research professionals to ensure accurate and standardized data compilation; and

•	Compiling measurable performance metrics for research teams and managers for feedback on data quality.

Finally, one of the most important and effective quality control measures we rely on is feedback provided by the commercial real estate professionals using our data every day.

Proprietary Technology

CoStar’s information technology professionals focus on developing new services and features for our customers, improving and maintaining existing services, integrating our current services, securing our comprehensive database of commercial real estate information and delivering research automation tools that improve the quality of our data and increase the efficiency of our research analysts.

Our information technology team is responsible for developing, improving and maintaining CoStar's information, analytics and online marketplace services. Our information technology team is also responsible for developing the infrastructure necessary to support CoStar’s business processes, our comprehensive database of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces and our extensive image library. The team implements technologies and systems that introduce efficient workflows and controls designed to increase the production capacity of our research teams and improve the quality of our data. Over the years, the team has developed data collection and quality control mechanisms that we believe are unique within the commercial real estate industry. The team continues to develop and modify our enterprise information management system that integrates CoStar's sales, research, field research, customer support and accounting information. We use this system to maintain our commercial real estate research information, manage contacts with the commercial real estate community, provide research workflow automation and conduct daily automated quality assurance checks. In addition, our information technology team has also developed fraud-detection technology to detect and prevent unauthorized access to our services. To supplement the measures we take to prevent misuse of our information, we recently added state of the art adaptive authentication technology to the login process of our CoStar Suite product.

Our information technology professionals maintain the servers and network components necessary to support CoStar services and research systems. CoStar's core services are served from multiple data centers to support uninterrupted service for our customers. CoStar’s services are continually monitored in an effort to ensure our customers fast and reliable access.

CoStar's comprehensive data protection policy provides for use of secure networks, strong passwords and dual factor authentication systems, encrypted data fields, end to end encryption, endpoint detection and response systems and services, security information and event management systems, off-site storage, cloud services, end user and developer security training, multilayered anti-phishing malware and spam protections and other protective measures in an effort to ensure the availability and security of all core systems.

Services

Our suite of information, analytics and online marketplaces is branded and marketed to our customers. Our services are primarily derived from a database of building-specific information and offer customers specialized tools for accessing, analyzing and using our information. Over time, we have enhanced and expanded, and expect to continue to enhance and expand our existing information, analytics and online marketplace services and we have developed and expect to continue to develop additional services that make use of our comprehensive database to meet the needs of our existing customers as well as potential new categories of customers.

Our principal information, analytics and online marketplace services, are described in the following paragraphs:

Information and Analytics

CoStar Suite®

CoStar Suite® is our integrated suite of online commercial real estate service offerings, which includes information about space available for-lease, information about properties for-sale, comparable sales information, tenant information, market analytics including leasing, sales and construction trends, information about industry professionals and their business relationships and industry news. CoStar Suite includes the following products and services, which are delivered through desktop, mobile and other Internet-connected devices to our subscribers primarily in our North American and European markets.

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CoStar Property® and for-sale provide a comprehensive inventory of office, industrial, retail, multifamily and student housing properties and land. We also provide for-lease and for-sale listings, historical data, property analytics, building photographs, demographics, maps and floor plans. Commercial real estate professionals use CoStar Property to identify available space for-lease, evaluate leasing and sale opportunities, value assets and position properties in the marketplace. Our clients also use CoStar Property to analyze market conditions by calculating current vacancy rates, absorption rates or average rental rates, and forecasting future trends based on user selected variables. CoStar Property provides subscribers with powerful map-based search & reporting capabilities.

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CoStar COMPS® is the industry’s most comprehensive database of comparable commercial real estate sales transactions and is designed for professionals who need to research property comparables, identify market trends, expedite the appraisal process and support property valuations. CoStar COMPS offers subscribers numerous fields of property information, access to support documents (e.g., deeds of trust) for new comparables, demographics and the ability to view for-sale properties alongside sold properties plotted on a map or aerial image or in a table format.

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CoStar Market Analytics provides owners, investors, brokers property managers, lenders, appraisers and other commercial real estate professionals the ability to view and report on aggregated market and submarket trends, including leasing, vacancy, rental rates, construction, investment sales activity and overall economic conditions that affect commercial real estate markets. CoStar Market Analytics covers all major real estate sectors including office, industrial, retail, multifamily and student housing, and provides quantitatively driven and economist curated forecasts of supply, demand, vacancy, and rent at the submarket level, and job growth and asset pricing at the market level.

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CoStar Tenant® is a detailed online business-to-business prospecting and analytical tool providing commercial real estate professionals with the most comprehensive commercial real estate-related tenant information available in our North American markets. CoStar Tenant profiles tenants occupying space in commercial buildings and provides updates on lease expirations - one of the service’s key features - as well as occupancy levels, growth rates and numerous other facts. Delivering this information via the Internet allows users to target prospective clients quickly through a searchable database that identifies only those tenants meeting certain criteria.

•	CoStar Lease Comps provides subscribers comprehensive data regarding CoStar researched lease transactions and a software tool to capture, manage and maintain their own user-entered lease data. In addition, CoStar Lease Comps provides subscribers the ability to analyze this combined lease dataset from an aggregate analytic perspective and generate various reports.

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CoStar Lease Analysis® is a workflow tool that is part of CoStar Suite and allows subscribers to incorporate CoStar data with their own data to perform in-depth lease analyses and share those analyses with other subscribers or non-subscribers. CoStar Lease Analysis can be used to produce an understandable cash flow analysis as well as key metrics about any proposed or existing lease. It combines financial modeling with CoStar’s comprehensive property information, enabling the subscriber to compare lease alternatives, either from a landlord or tenant perspective.

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CoStar Public Record is CoStar’s newest commercial real estate servicing offering. It provides access to a searchable database of nearly 38 million commercially-zoned parcels in the U.S. Users can search for property attributes, sale transaction, loan, lien and tax assessments information. Information in this module is sourced from numerous counties and jurisdictions that provide this data for ownership, title and property tax assessment purposes.

Information Services

CoStar Real Estate Manager® is a real estate and asset management and lease accounting software solution designed for corporate real estate managers, company executives, financial accounting directors, business unit directors, brokers and project managers. CoStar Real Estate Manager helps users connect real estate initiatives with company strategic goals, streamline portfolio operations, automate the process for collecting and managing space requests, reduce occupancy costs with analytics that track location performance against targets and maximize location performance through proactive portfolio management. Additionally, the software is used to help companies manage their lease accounting and reporting requirements.

CoStar Risk Analytics® is a commercial real estate risk management tool. It allows users to calculate probability of default, loss given default, expected loss and unexpected loss at various confidence levels for a loan or a portfolio. It provides direct comparisons of credit risk and refinance risk across time, market, property type and loan structure for all macroeconomic forecast (including federal stress testing / comprehensive capital analysis and review) scenarios. CoStar Risk Analytics COMPASS is used by lenders, issuers, servicers, ratings agencies and regulators to estimate required loss reserves, economic capital and regulatory capital, target lending opportunities, set pricing strategy, objectively compare/price loans, more effectively allocate capital, manage refinance risk and conduct stress testing. Clients for CoStar Risk Analytics COMPASS services or data include most of the Systemically Important Financial Institutions as well as a large number of other top-500 banks, insurance companies, hedge funds and government financial regulators.

STAR Report is STR’s data analytics report. It provides hospitality benchmarking, measuring a hotel’s performance against a self-selected aggregated competitive set. STR's confidential data reports enable customers to understand their market position based on trends and indices. Reports are provided on a monthly, weekly or daily basis and provide insights about key metrics

such as occupancy, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR). STAR Reports are only available to industry participants who provide data to STR -- typically hotel brands, third party management companies and owners. STR also offers ad hoc reports with a customizable data set providing aggregated hotel performance data for a bespoke set of hotels or standardized industry segments (e.g. market or submarket).

Online Marketplaces

Multifamily

Apartments.comTM, part of our network of apartment marketing sites, provides a variety of ad packages and enhancements that allow property managers and owners to fully showcase their apartment community through increased exposure and interactions that allow renters to view, engage and connect with the community, including featured community listings, customized flyers and brochures, and special offer coupons. Apartments.com also provides tools to facilitate the rental process, including online applications, background and credit checks and rental payment processing. The Apartments.com network consists of numerous other apartment marketing sites, including:

•	ApartmentFinder® provides lead generation, advertising and Internet marketing solutions to property managers and owners through its main site, ApartmentFinder.com.

•	ForRent.com® provides digital advertising through a network of four multifamily websites - which includes ForRent.com, AFTER55.com, CorporateHousing.com and ForRentUniversity.com.

•	ApartmentHomeLiving.comTM provides renters with another national online apartment rental resource that showcases apartments for rent with official prices, pictures, floor plans and detailed information on each apartment.

•	Apartamentos.comTM provides Spanish speaking renters with an online apartment rentals resource offered exclusively in Spanish, with the same primary features found on Apartments.com.

•	Westside Rentals® specializes in Southern California real estate rentals.

•	Off Campus Partners provides student housing marketplace content and technology to U.S. universities, simplifying the off-campus housing search process for universities, property managers, and students.

Commercial Property and Land

LoopNet Premium Lister® LoopNet Premium Lister is designed for commercial real estate professionals and other customers who seek the broadest possible exposure for their listings, access to leads lists, and advanced marketing and searching tools. LoopNet Premium Lister provides subscribers with the ability to market their listings to all LoopNet.com visitors, as well as numerous other features. LoopNet Premium Lister is available for a quarterly or annual subscription.

LoopNet Signature Ads is designed for commercial real estate professionals and other customers who seek the broadest possible exposure for their listings, access to leads lists, and advanced marketing and searching tools. LoopNet Power Listings provides subscribers with full access to three of the industry’s top commercial real estate marketplaces: LoopNet®, Cityfeet® and Showcase.com®, as well as 200+ online newspaper websites including the Wall Street Journal. LoopNet Power Listings is available for a quarterly or annual subscription.

LandsofAmericaTM, LandAndFarmTM and LandWatch*®* LandsofAmerica.com, LandAndFarm.com, and LandWatch.com are leading online marketplaces for rural land for-sale. Sellers pay a fee to list their land for-sale, and interested buyers can search the respective sites' listings for free. The LandsofAmerica.com, LandAndFarm.com and LandWatch.com websites are also accessible via our Land.com domain.

BizBuySell®, BizQuest® and FindaFranchise BizBuySell.com, BizQuest.com and FindaFranchise.com are leading online marketplaces for operating businesses and franchises for-sale. Business sellers pay a fee to list their operating businesses for-sale, and interested buyers can search the respective sites' listings for free. The BizBuySell, BizQuest and FindaFranchise Franchise Directories allow interested business buyers to search hundreds of franchise opportunities, and franchisors can list their availabilities in the directory on a cost per lead basis.

Clients

We draw clients from across the commercial real estate and related business community, including commercial real estate brokers, owners, developers, landlords, property managers, financial institutions, retailers, vendors, appraisers, investment banks, government agencies and other parties involved in commercial real estate. For the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, no single client accounted for more than 5% of our revenues.

Sales and Marketing

Our overall sales strategy is to attract new clients, renew existing customers and cross-sell the numerous solutions we have to offer. Our sales teams sell multiple products and are primarily located in field sales offices throughout the U.S., with others in Canada, the U.K., Spain, France, and Germany. Our inside sales teams are largely based in Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia. Our inside sales professionals actively work lead lists, prospect for new customers and perform product demonstrations over the telephone. They utilize the Internet and remote presentation tools to convey the multiple solutions we have to offer.

Our local offices typically serve as the location for field sales, client support and field research operations. This enables our clients to benefit from a local presence. The sales force is responsible for selling to new prospects, training new and existing clients, providing ongoing customer support, renewing contracts and identifying cross-selling opportunities. In addition, the sales force has the primary front-line responsibility for customer service, ensuring client satisfaction and building long-term relationships. Our local offices act as hubs for training, sources of market insight, product feedback sessions and connecting industry participants.

We use incentives, including discounts to encourage existing clients to buy additional products and services. This deepens our customer relationships and offers more value. We actively manage all client accounts with frequent meetings, trainings and updates on new enhancements. In 2019, we successfully implemented a number of important sales initiatives, including initiatives that focused on property owners in the U.S. Our focus on the owner segment allowed us to successfully position LoopNet Signature Ads as a valuable solution for a property owner’s major risk, namely, the cost of vacant space and the resulting negative impact on valuation of the property or portfolio. Our CoStar U.K. sales force concentrated on reaching customer locations and visiting or training users on the numerous product enhancements we released in 2019. In Canada, our reps were focused on targeting brokers, owners and lender prospects.

We seek to make our services essential to our clients’ businesses. To encourage clients to use our services regularly, we generally charge a fixed monthly amount for our subscription-based information services rather than fees based on actual system usage. Contract rates for subscription-based services are generally based on the number of sites, number of users, organization size, the client’s business focus, geography and the range of services subscribed for. Our marketing solutions are priced by exposure levels, the number of properties/spaces for-lease, rent or sale and the market in which they are offered. Listings for customers who purchase packages with the highest level of exposure usually appear first in search results and offer the richest media content and engagement opportunities for tenants searching for space, renters looking for an apartment or investors seeking an opportunity. Our subscription clients generally pay contract fees on a monthly basis, but in some cases may pay us on a quarterly or annual basis.

Our primary marketing methods include: service demonstrations; face-to-face networking; web-based or digital marketing; direct marketing such as direct mail and email; communication via our corporate website and news services; participation in trade shows and industry events; Company-sponsored events; print advertising in trade magazines and other business publications; client referrals; content marketing including webinars, seminars, and white papers and other company newsletters distributed via email to our clients and prospects. Our CoStar and LoopNet databases have been integrated to enhance CoStar information services as information tools and LoopNet marketplace services as marketing tools. This integration provides clients the ability to enter listings into our Marketing Center tool and to update their listings in CoStar and LoopNet simultaneously. To familiarize clients with the integration and benefits of the tool, we provided video tutorials and hosted numerous webinars, in addition to web-based marketing and direct marketing efforts. In 2019, over one hundred thousand commercial real estate professionals and other users successfully made millions of updates to their listings using our Marketing Center.

To generate brand awareness and site traffic for the Apartments.com network of rental websites, we utilize a multi-channel marketing campaign featuring television and radio ads, online and digital advertising impressions, streaming audio and podcasts, social media, email, public relations and news articles, out-of-home and paid search marketing, all of which are reinforced with substantial Search Engine Optimization efforts. In 2019, we increased our investment in Apartments.com marketing, and we plan to further increase that investment in 2020. We plan to continue to utilize these marketing methods and will continue to work to determine the optimal level of marketing investment for our services for future periods.

Comprehensive digital marketing and direct marketing are effective means for us to find prospective clients. Our digital marketing efforts include Search Engine Optimization, paid advertising with major search engines, social media and display advertising on commercial real estate news and business websites and mobile applications, and our direct marketing efforts include television, radio, out-of-home ads, direct mail and email and, when applicable, make extensive use of our unique, proprietary database. Once we have identified a prospective client, our most effective sales method is a service demonstration. We use various forms of integrated marketing and advertising to build brand awareness, brand identity and reinforce the value and benefits of our services. We also sponsor and attend local association activities and events, including industry-leading events for commercial real estate brokers, property owners, investors and retail and financial services institutions, and attend or exhibit at industry trade shows and conferences to reinforce our relationships with our core user groups.

News has always been a valuable part of CoStar's core subscription offering. CoStar's news teams report on the latest deals and developments across our markets, keeping subscribers informed and driving higher usage in our core product. In 2019, we enhanced our news offerings. We expanded our coverage of real estate investment trusts, and working with the analyst team, added quarterly video updates on national and local markets. We bolstered our coverage of the hospitality industry by adding relevant news from Hotel News Now, a unit of newly acquired STR. We launched a new weekly column on economic policy that proved so popular we made it available as a separate email newsletter to subscribers. We continued to build on our newsletter franchise, giving subscribers the ability to select the coverage they wished to receive in daily emails. In addition, we now showcase news excerpts and advertising on the publicly available CoStar.com.

We believe the ability to customize and personalize news for the user's specific interests makes our news service even more relevant and valuable to subscribers. In addition to encouraging more engagement through logins and time on site, we believe a more robust news operation also provides more options and formats for advertising to the commercial real estate audience.

We currently offer dozens of webinars each year aimed at helping customers learn more about the commercial real estate industry and how to use our services. The webinars are available both as live presentations and as on-demand programs hosted on our website. On a monthly basis, we issue the CoStar Commercial Repeat Sales Index ("CCRSI"), a comprehensive set of benchmarks that investors and other market participants can use to better understand commercial real estate price movements. CCRSI is produced using our underlying data and is publicly distributed by CoStar through the news media and made available online.

Competition

The market for information, analytics and online marketplaces generally is competitive and extremely dynamic. In the commercial real estate and apartment rentals industries, we believe the principal competitive factors affecting these services and providers are:

•	Quality and depth of the underlying databases;

•	Quality and quantity of leads and leases delivered;

•	Ease of use, flexibility and functionality of the software;

•	Intuitiveness and appeal of the user interface;

•	Timeliness of the data, including listings;

•	Breadth of geographic coverage and services offered;

•	Completeness and accuracy of content;

•	Client service and support;

•	Perception that the service offered is the industry standard;

•	Price;

•	Effectiveness of marketing and sales efforts;

•	Proprietary nature of methodologies, databases and technical resources;

•	Vendor reputation;

•	Brand loyalty among customers; and

•	Capital resources.

We compete directly and indirectly for customers with the following categories of companies:

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Online marketing services, websites or data exchanges targeted to commercial real estate brokers, buyers and sellers of commercial real estate properties, insurance companies, mortgage brokers and lenders, such as Reed Business Information Limited and its Estates Gazette and Radius Data Exchange products, RealMassive, officespace.com, 42floors, Brevitas, Catylist, Ten-X, RealNex MarketPlace, TenantWise, www.propertyshark.com, Rofo, BuildingSearch.com, CIMLS, CompStak, Rightmove, CommercialCafe, CREXi, Truss, TotalCommercial.com and DebtX;

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Publishers and distributors of information, analytics and marketing services, including regional providers and national print publications, such as CBRE Economic Advisors, Marshall & Swift, Yale Robbins, REIS Network (part of the Moody's Analytics Accelerator), Real Capital Analytics, Real Capital Markets, Reonomy, The Smith Guide, Yardi Matrix, RealPage and its Axiometrics business and ReScour, Inc.;

•

Search engine and Internet listing services featuring apartments for rent, such as Google, Bing, Facebook Marketplace, ApartmentGuide.com, Rent.com, Rentals.com, Zillow Rentals, Trulia Rentals, StreetEasy, NakedApartments.com, HotPads.com, MyNewPlace.com, Zumper, PadMapper, craigslist, ApartmentList.com, Move.com, Realtor.com, Homes.com, Adobo, RadPad, RentJungle, RentCafe.com, RentHop, RentBerry, and ApartmentRatings;

•	Locally controlled real estate boards, exchanges or associations sponsoring property listing services and the companies with whom they partner, such as Catylist, the National Association of Realtors, CCIM Institute, Society of Industrial and Office Realtors, the Commercial Association of Realtors Data Services and AIR CRE;

•	Real estate portfolio management software solutions, such as Cougar Software, MRI Software, Altus, Intuit and SiteCompli;

•	Real estate lease management and administration software solutions, such as Accruent, Tririga, Manhattan Software, Tango Analytics, Lease Accelerator and AMT Direct;

•	In-house research departments operated by commercial real estate brokers; and

•	Public record providers.

As the market for information, analytics and online marketplaces develops, additional competitors (including companies which could have greater access to data, financial, product development, technical, analytic or marketing resources than we do) may enter the market and competition may intensify. For example, a company like Bloomberg L.P. has the resources, and has previously announced an intention, to move into the commercial real estate information business. Further, a company like Google, which has a far-reaching web presence and substantial data aggregation capabilities, could enter the commercial real estate marketing arena. A company like Zillow, which already has a presence in residential real estate and the apartment rentals industry, could use its resources to further expand in the online apartment rentals industry creating greater competition among Internet listing services for the marketing budgets of property managers and property owners. While we believe that we have successfully differentiated ourselves from existing competitors, current or future competitors could materially harm our business.

Proprietary Rights

To protect our proprietary rights in our methodologies, database, software, trademarks and other intellectual property, we depend upon a combination of:

•	Trade secret, misappropriation, unfair competition, copyright, trademark, computer fraud, database protection and other laws;

•	Registration of copyrights and trademarks;

•	Nondisclosure, noncompetition and other contractual provisions with employees and consultants;

•	License agreements with customers;

•	Patent protection; and

•	Technical measures.

We seek to protect our software’s source code, our database and our photography as trade secrets and under copyright law. Although copyright registration is not a prerequisite for copyright protection, we have filed for copyright registration for many of our databases, photographs, software and other materials. Under current U.S. copyright law, the arrangement and selection of data may be protected, but the actual data itself may not be. Certain U.K. database protection laws provide additional protections for our U.K. databases. We license our services under license agreements that grant our clients non-exclusive, non-transferable rights. These agreements restrict the disclosure and use of our information and prohibit the unauthorized reproduction or transfer of any of our proprietary information, methodologies or analytics.

We also attempt to protect our proprietary databases, our trade secrets and our proprietary information through confidentiality and noncompetition agreements with our employees and consultants. Our services also include technical measures designed to detect, discourage and prevent unauthorized access to and/or copying of our intellectual property. We have established an internal antipiracy team that uses fraud-detection technology to continually monitor use of our services to detect and prevent unauthorized access, and we actively prosecute individuals and firms that engage in this unlawful activity.

We maintain U.S. and international trademark registrations for CoStar’s core service names and proactively file U.S. and international trademark applications covering our new and planned service names. Our federally registered trademarks include CoStar®, CoStar Suite®, CoStar Property®, CoStar COMPS®, CoStar Tenant®, CoStar Lease Analysis®, LoopNet®, Showcase.com®, Cityfeet.com®, Apartments.com®, and Lands of America®, among many others. In the U.S., trademarks are generally valid as long as they are in use and have not been found to be generic. We consider our trademarks in the aggregate to constitute a valuable asset. In addition, we maintain a patent portfolio that protects certain of our systems and methodologies. We currently have one granted patent in the U.K., which expires in 2021, covering, among other things, certain of our field research methodologies, four patents in Canada, which expire in 2021 (2 patents) and 2036 (2 patents), covering, among other things, certain features of our field research methodologies and user interface features, and thirteen patents in the U.S. which expire in 2020, 2021 (2 patents), 2022 (2 patents), 2025, 2032 (2 patents), 2036, and 2037 (4 patents), covering, among other things, certain features of our field research methodologies and user interface feature. We regard the rights protected by our patents as valuable to our business, but do not believe that our business is materially dependent on any single patent or portfolio of patents as a whole.

Employees

As of January 31, 2020, we employed 4,337 employees. None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We have experienced no work stoppages. We believe that our employee relations are excellent. In common with many German companies, employees in our German subsidiary, Thomas Daily GmbH, have elected five fellow employees to form a Works Council, which represents our employees at the location. The Works Council has certain co-determination rights and rights to receive information from us and engage us in discussions under applicable law.

Available Information

Our investor relations Internet website is http://www.costargroup.com/investors. The reports we file with or furnish to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report, quarterly reports and current reports, as well as amendments to those reports, are available free of charge on our Internet website as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Securities and Exchange Commission maintains an Internet site that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the Commission at http://www.sec.gov.