CoStar Group reviews

2.7

34% would recommend to a friend

(3,014 total reviews)
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Andrew C. Florance

32% approve of CEO

38% positive business outlook

CoStar Group has an employee rating of 2.7 out of 5 stars, based on 3,014 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The CoStar Group employee rating is 22% below average for employers within the Real Estate industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
2.0
Aug 14, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Talented coworkers and great managers. Office space is amazing. Provided food, coffee and lunch. Free gym and personal training.

Cons

CEO unwilling to change with the times. Little to no WFH flexibility.

1.0
May 29, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

CoStar offers some of the most competitive compensation and benefits packages in the job market. That's about it.

Cons

The research department at CoStar is bogged down by terrible and toxic upper management. The quality of the data obtained by researchers is compromised due to the expected standard of metrics, which are constantly imposed by intimidation and threats. I constantly went into work on any given day expecting to be fired for not performing to their extremely high metrics. Lower level management is pressured from levels above them, which in turn places pressure on actual researchers themselves. I could tell that managers at a direct level above researchers were under immense pressure from highers up to have their teams perform well, to the extent where they confidentially acknowledged shortcomings with policies and procedures that were counter-intuitive to day to day operations with their teams. I could not name more than five people in such a large office that actually enjoyed coming to work for such a toxic and awful company. If you can tolerate a god awful work environment with the guise of cash incentives and a month long Tesla rental in front of you, then by all means go for it. CoStar is an extremely large and successful company that occupies such a major portion of the industry it operates in, which gives it a major advantage in initial appeal for potential new hires in the job market. What you don't initially see are the levels of turnover and the morale of the people that come into work consistently miserable due to being berated for not obtaining pointless metrics that reflect nothing about their work ethic or the quality of data submitted in the long run. The saddest part is, the people who make major decisions at CoStar could probably care less, especially for lower level employee retention for the Richmond research headquarters. They can pull from a new batch of recent college grads every three months from the several colleges in the area, and keep bodies in the building until they get fed up and quit after they can't take it anymore. Personally, I have never had a job take such an adverse toll on my mental health until I joined CoStar. I feel like a whole new person after getting the hell out of there. In context to other reviews on here, I agree with the fact that there may be fake reviews listed to boost and inflate the overall rating of the company based on feedback. Many of the direct company responses acknowledge the metric driven atmosphere, but please know how that is constantly shoved in your face and essentially determines your value to the company. The entire research department is composed of people that don't care, either because the job is pointless and requires you to harass brokers/random businesses to "solicit information" (obtain a 90 second phone call to obtain credit for looking like you're attempting to do your job), or people that just show up, do the job, and leave without any sense of fulfillment or enjoyment about what they actually do. Truly think long and hard about what you want to sacrifice for the enticing compensation and benefits package. I took a significant pay cut after breaking ties with the company and I feel so much better about doing so when looking at the bigger picture. If you don't want to hate your job and yourself, don't give CoStar any of your time or consideration.

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CoStar Group Response
6y
We are disappointed to hear that you did not have a positive experience while you were at CoStar Group and would like to better understand your specific experiences. We are proud of our competitive compensation and great benefits that we offer our employees. With that, we hold our employees at all levels to the highest standards because we pride ourselves on our top of the line product and delivering the most comprehensive and accurate data available in commercial real estate to our clients. Research is one of the most essential roles in our organization and we are sensitive to the demands of this position. However, not everyone thrives in metric-based positions and it sounds that this may not have been the best opportunity for you. We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. We would like to address your comment about fake reviews. We listen to and appreciate all feedback, whether it is negative or positive. We, of course, appreciate when employees share their positive experiences with the company, but all reviews listed on this site are 100% voluntary and provided by willing, real, current and prior CoStar employees. No reviews listed were written in a false manner in an effort to inflate ratings.
1.0
Sep 17, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is very fair and benefits are honestly great. The coworkers are also great people.

Cons

Where to begin. The company will con you out of benefits if they can. The company boast about tuition reimbursement but they leave out how limited it is. The Human Resources Dept for this company is a joke. They are not knowledgeable on the policies and are extremely bias. As a research Associate,you are given pretty useless busy work to complete as your job description. Basically it is just a soliciting call center. Your job is to annoy brokers every day for a conversation that needs to meet a certain duration of time for it to be considered “valuable”. You must reach out to the same brokers every month about the same property to ask the same questions. Not a lot of racial diversity at the top of the company.

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CoStar Group Response
7y
Thanks for taking the time to post a review. We strive to be quite transparent about our benefits through our benefits microsite, but it sounds like we fell short on communicating that to you in regards to tuition reimbursement. Our 3.8 rating on Glassdoor for Comps and Benefits reflects a more positive experience for the majority of our employees. We do actively encourage employees to leave honest reviews, and fake reviews, if discovered, would not be tolerated by us or Glassdoor. Our research process of calling brokers and owners of commercial real estate is in place to ensure that we have the most accurate data in the industry. Researchers use the phone to gather and verify data, and to build relationships with their contacts, not just soliciting info from them. We have also recently launched Listing Manager, which gives brokers flexibility to enter and update their data at their convenience. Our most recent Engagement Survey scores just came out, and I am pleased that the research organization once again rose 5 points over the previous year. We continue to improve as you and other current and past employees provide us feedback. It is unfortunate that you feel your experience was not a good one and that you felt misled. I wish you all the best in finding a role that is a better fit for you and your career goals.
Viewing 112 - 114 of 3,014 Reviews

Glassdoor has 3,106 CoStar Group reviews submitted anonymously by CoStar Group employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if CoStar Group is right for you.