CoStar Group to Acquire Residential Listing Site Homes.com
April 14 2021 - 4:04PM
Business Wire
Acquisition Expands CoStar’s Effort to Provide
Digital Tools and Advertising Solutions That Support Residential
Real Estate Agents and Their Customers
CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP), the leading provider of
commercial real estate information, analytics and online
marketplaces, announced today that it has reached a definitive
agreement to acquire Homes.com, a division of Dominion Enterprises,
for $156 million in cash.
Homes.com is a well-recognized residential property listing and
marketing portal that supports over 500,000 residential agents and
brokers in the home sale process. Approximately 5 million people
visit the Homes.com website each month to search nearly 1.8 million
residential property listings. Homes.com provides advertising and
marketing services to residential brokers and agents based on
listing feeds that cover more than 90% of all Multiple Listing
Services (MLS) subscribers in the United States. The company is
headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia.
“We are excited to welcome the Homes.com team to the CoStar
family,” said Andrew C. Florance, Founder and Chief Executive
Officer of CoStar Group. “We believe that the acquisition of
Homes.com is highly complementary alongside Homesnap, the
industry-leading workflow and marketing platform for residential
real estate agents that we acquired in December last year. The
combination of Homes.com’s online portal and consumer traffic with
Homesnap’s powerful mobile tools and highly effective agent
marketing solutions has the potential to create a differentiated
service that uniquely focuses on selling a house faster and at a
better price, rather than just trying to take agent fees.”
“Unfortunately,” continued Florance, “current residential
listing sites do not serve the interests of homeowners or their
agents as they focus on selling advertisements on top of agent
listings and increasingly offer competing brokerage services. These
sites generate a portion of their revenue from directing potential
homebuyers away from the listing agents to unrelated buyer agents
that are advertising on top of listing agent listings. This is a
practice we plan to no longer continue. Our plan in bringing
Homesnap and Homes.com together is to help agents market their
listings in support of the ‘your listing, your lead’ philosophy –
which stands in contrast to most players in the industry.”
“The Homes.com team and I are looking forward to working with
our new colleagues at CoStar,” said Dave Mele, President of
Homes.com. “Together we will be dedicated to growing the Homes.com
brand and building innovative solutions that expand the marketing
options available to consumers and their agents.”
The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021,
subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review. We
anticipate the acquisition of Homes.com will contribute
approximately $5-10 million in incremental revenue to CoStar Group
in the second half of 2021, subject to transaction timing. CoStar
Group plans to provide additional information about the Homes.com
acquisition during the first quarter 2021 financial results
conference call scheduled for April 27, 2021.
About CoStar Group
CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) is the leading provider of
commercial real estate information, analytics and online
marketplaces. Founded in 1987, CoStar conducts expansive, ongoing
research to produce and maintain the largest and most comprehensive
database of commercial real estate information. Our suite of online
services enables clients to analyze, interpret and gain unmatched
insight on commercial property values, market conditions and
current availabilities. STR provides premium data benchmarking,
analytics and marketplace insights for the global hospitality
sector. Ten-X provides a leading platform for conducting commercial
real estate online auctions and negotiated bids. LoopNet is the
most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online.
Realla is the UK’s most comprehensive commercial property digital
marketplace. Apartments.com, ApartmentFinder.com, ForRent.com,
ApartmentHomeLiving.com, Westside Rentals, AFTER55.com,
CorporateHousing.com, ForRentUniversity.com and Apartamentos.com
form the premier online apartment resource for renters seeking
great apartment homes and provide property managers and owners a
proven platform for marketing their properties. Homesnap is an
industry-leading online and mobile software platform that provides
user-friendly applications to optimize residential real estate
agent workflow and reinforce the agent-client relationship. CoStar
Group’s websites attract tens of millions of unique monthly
visitors. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar maintains offices
throughout the U.S. and in Europe, Canada and Asia with a staff of
over 4,600 worldwide, including the industry’s largest professional
research organization. For more information, visit
www.costargroup.com
About Homes.com
Homes.com connects consumers with real estate professionals
through a simply smarter home search experience. With more than 25
years of experience serving the real estate industry, Homes.com
offers real estate professionals brand and property advertising,
search engine marketing, and instant response lead generation to
help them succeed online. For more information, visit
Homes.com.
This news release contains “forward-looking statements” within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Such statements include, but are not limited to, statements
about CoStar Group's plans, objectives, expectations, beliefs and
intentions and other statements including words such as “hope,”
“anticipate,” “may,” “believe,” “expect,” “intend,” “will,”
“should,” “plan,” “estimate,” “predict,” “continue” and “potential”
or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology.
Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations
of management of CoStar Group and are subject to many risks and
uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from the
results anticipated in the forward-looking statements and the
assumptions and estimates used as a basis for the forward-looking
statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or
contribute to such differences: the possibility that the
acquisition of Homes.com does not close when expected or at all;
the possibility that the parties are unable to obtain regulatory
approval, or the risk that any actions required to be taken in
order to receive regulatory approval may impact the expected
benefits of the transaction; the risk that the businesses of
Homes.com, Homesnap and CoStar may not be combined successfully or
in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the risk that business
disruption relating to the Homes.com acquisition may be greater
than expected; the risk that the acquisition does not produce the
expected benefits or results for CoStar, Homes.com or their
customers, agents and brokers, including growing the Homes.com
brand expanding the marketing options available to consumers and
their agents and as otherwise stated in this release; the risk that
CoStar’s business plans may change; the risk that discontinuing
certain Homes.com practices results in the loss of customers,
brokers, agents and revenue; the risk that Homes.com revenues for
the second half of 2021 will not be as stated in this press
release; the risk that the combination and integration of Homes.com
will disrupt CoStar Group's or Homes.com’s operations or result in
the loss of customers or key employees; uncertainty surrounding the
impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including volatility in the
international and U.S. economy, worker absenteeism or decreased
productivity, quarantines or other travel or health-related
restrictions; the length and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic; the
pace of recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic; and government
and private actions taken to control the spread of COVID-19.
Additional factors that could cause results to differ materially
from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements include,
but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar Group’s filings from
time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including
in CoStar Group’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
December 31, 2020, which is filed with the SEC, including in the
“Risk Factors” section of that filing, as well as CoStar Group’s
other filings with the SEC (including Current Reports on Form 8-K)
available at the SEC’s website (www.sec.gov). All forward-looking
statements are based on information available to CoStar Group on
the date hereof, and CoStar Group assumes no obligation to update
or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of
new information, future events or otherwise.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210414005897/en/
Investor Relations: Bill Warmington Vice President CoStar
Group Investor Relations (202) 346-5661 wwarmington@costar.com
News Media: Matthew Blocher Vice President CoStar Group
Corporate Marketing & Communications (202) 346-6775
mblocher@costargroup.com
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