WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSGP), the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and marketing services, today announced the most dramatic and sweeping upgrade in over a decade to CoStar, its signature product platform.
The new release is part of an aggressive multi-year plan to integrate CoStar's industry-leading property and market information with powerful productivity and analytic tools, and features five major enhancements:
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A faster, more intuitive map-based search. The new search functionality enables customers to visualize search results on a map as they create queries. Search criteria are customized for specific property types, with the most commonly used search criteria brought right up front to get to their results faster. The user "sees" the results change immediately, creating an engaging and user-friendly experience.
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Comprehensive coverage of U.S. multifamily properties. With this new release, CoStar now offers the same comprehensive coverage of U.S. multifamily properties that it has become known for in the office, industrial and retail sectors. CoStar is tracking information on over 300,000 apartment communities with five or more units for a total of over 16 million apartment units, more than twice as many as any other information source. Subscribers can search and analyze multifamily properties in stunning detail; CoStar is capturing information such as multifamily-specific submarkets, building quality, effective rents, concessions, occupancy levels, ownership, unit sizes, bed/bath mix, amenities, images and more.
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More robust analytics. The analytic capabilities in CoStar are greatly enhanced for all property types. More than 40 vivid charts and graphs enable users to analyze vacancy rates, rental rates, absorption, leasing activity and more, for individual properties as well as groups of properties. Among the new analytic capabilities are dynamic charts that predict a property's probability of leasing over time. Another reveals the most active buyers in a market area or segment by sales volume as well as buyer type. The most popular charts and graphs display automatically, and users can customize their analysis by dragging and dropping their choice from a comprehensive Analytic menu.
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Lease valuation and comparison tools. CoStar LeaseAnalysis™ enables brokers and owners to quickly analyze and compare the financials on up to eight lease proposals side-by-side. Integration with CoStar's detailed property information eliminates the need to manually key in large amounts of information, and a "sensitivity" feature allows users to instantly view 125 scenarios on key proposal terms. CoStar LeaseAnalysis eliminates the risk of unknown errors associated with using spreadsheets or spreadsheet-based lease comparison tools, and gives brokers and owners a sophisticated professional tool they can use to engage directly with their clients.
- CoStarGo 2.0. An upgrade to CoStarGo offers mobile access to powerful property and market analytics to commercial real estate professionals when they are out in the field or with clients. CoStarGo 2.0 is the first mobile app that presents detailed analytic information on individual and groups of properties around a user's current location, providing an instant snapshot of current trends for the properties the user is viewing. With CoStar's Dynamic Snapshot™ users can zoom in or out to change the properties onscreen, and CoStarGo 2.0 automatically adjusts to analyze the specific area or set of properties being viewed.
"These improvements are designed to help commercial real estate professionals get to the right answer faster," stated CoStar Group Founder and CEO Andrew C. Florance. "We are confident these new features and enhancements bring tremendous benefits to our traditional customers, commercial real estate brokers. At the same time, we believe our expanded multifamily coverage, together with the enhanced analytics in the new CoStar Suite and CoStarGo, will make our products more valuable to property owners, lenders and institutional investors."
According to Florance, additional software releases are planned on a quarterly basis over the next 24 months as CoStar continues to build out its industry-leading information and analytics platform. Over 90,000 commercial subscribers regularly access CoStar's subscription-based information services to search properties for sale or lease, value and underwrite properties, analyze market conditions, assess risk and position assets in the marketplace.
About CoStar Group, Inc.
CoStar Group (Nasdaq:CSGP) is the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and marketing services. 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. Through LoopNet, the Company operates the most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online with more than 7.7 million registered members. CoStar operates websites that have approximately 9 million unique monthly visitors in aggregate. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar maintains offices throughout the U.S. and in Europe with a staff of approximately 2,000 worldwide, including the industry's largest professional research organization. For more information, visit www.costar.com.
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. These statements are based upon current beliefs and are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. The following factors, among others, could cause or contribute to such differences: the risk that users of the new product enhancements do not realize the benefits expected and as stated in this release; the possibility that the new product features and enhancements do not result in tremendous benefits to CoStar's traditional customers or make CoStar's products more valuable to property owners, lenders and institutional investors; the risk that other, competing applications are in the market or will enter the market; and the risk that additional software releases will not be released as expected and stated in this press release. More information about potential factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, those stated in CoStar's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including CoStar's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2012, and CoStar's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2013, under the heading "Risk Factors" in each of these filings. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to CoStar on the date hereof, and CoStar assumes no obligation to update such statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.