TL;DR
CoStar Group acquires Zonda, a leading new home construction data and marketplace platform, for $800 million in cash. The deal fills the last gap in CoStar’s real estate data empire, which already includes commercial, multifamily, residential sales and location data through more than 40 acquisitions totaling $7.3 billion.
CoStar Group has agreed to acquire Zonda, a leading provider of new home construction information, home building software and residential real estate markets, for $800 million in cash. contract, announced on ThursdayIt is expected to close in the second half of 2026 and will be adjusted to adjusted earnings per share in its first full year.
Zonda serves more than 3,000 customers in the homebuilding ecosystem, including the largest residential builders, developers, suppliers and lenders in North America. Its platform covers the full cycle of new home development, from land acquisition and construction forecasting to community marketing and online marketplaces, tracking over 500 apartment sizes.
New construction gap filling
CoStar has spent the last 15 years assembling the world’s most comprehensive real estate information platform. Its CoStar Suite dominates commercial real estate research. Like other data platform operators who are consolidating their marketsthe company has methodically expanded through acquisitions, completing more than 40 deals valued at approximately $7.3 billion during that time.
Apartments.com now generates $1.1 billion in annual revenue. Homes.com, the company’s residential brokerage marketplace, has grown subscribers by 337% since the first quarter of 2024 and claims to be the second largest and fastest growing residential real estate marketplace in the United States. CoStar completed the $1.6 billion acquisition of 3D digital twin and artificial intelligence company Matterport in February 2025.
The pattern is clear. CoStar has covered commercial real estate with its flagship product, multifamily rentals through Apartments.com, residential sales through Homes.com and Matterport, and the physical built environment through Matterport’s location data. New home construction was the remaining gap. The probe fills it.
What does the probe actually do?
Zonda was created in 2018 through the merger of Hanley Wood, a B2B data services company serving the US residential construction industry, and Meyers Research, a provider of real-time market data for homebuilders. Private equity firm MidOcean Partners arranged the merger and rebranded it as Zonda in 2020. $800 million sale to CoStar A type of PE exit that has become typical in the SaaS and data platform sectorwhere specialized vertical data companies are built through mergers and sold to larger platforms.
Zonda’s three main products are subscription-based data and intelligence covering the new home market, online marketplaces for new homes in the US and Canada, and a suite of software tools for virtual home appraisals, including visualization, customization and tours. The data side tracks everything from lot availability and permit activity to price trends and absorption rates at the community level.
CoStar’s financial condition
CoStar reported revenue of $897 million in the first quarter of 2026, a 23% year-over-year increase, and expects full-year revenue to be $3.8 billion, up 18% from 2025. Adjusted EBITDA is projected to reach 83% growth and 20% margin over 2025. The company has the balance sheet to absorb the $800 million cash deal without significant strain.
The stock, however, did not reflect the speed of the transaction. CoStar shares down about 49% in the last six monthsthe decline stemming in part from heavy investment costs at Homes.com and in part from broader market skepticism about the timing of profitability for the residential business. CEO Andy Florence was buying shares on the open market earlier this year, buying more than 70,000 shares at prices between $34.67 and $36.00.
The question of information monopoly
With Zonda, CoStar will hold dominant or leading data positions in every major segment of the US real estate market. Proptech startups create AI-powered tools will increasingly find the key information they need for real estate development, appraisal or investment flowing through CoStar’s pipes.
This consolidation carries the same dynamics seen in other data platform markets. A single operator controlling the reference data for the industry can set prices, shape how participants view their markets, and create switching costs that strengthen its position. CoStar’s proposition is that integration creates value: Homebuilders using Zonda data will be able to list on Homes.com, track competitors’ prices through CoStar analytics, and market to renters through Apartments.com within one ecosystem.
Whether this integration adds value or simply concentrates pricing power will depend on execution. So far, CoStar has spent $800 million to make it happen the next generation of real estate intelligence it works on its own platform, not someone else’s.
