CoStar Group acquires student housing marketplace Off Campus Partners

CoStar Group, Inc., the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces has announced its acquisition of Off Campus Partners, LLC (OCP) a leading online multifamily marketplace service for student housing in the United States.

Founded in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2000 by a University of Virginia student, OCP enters into exclusive agreements with universities, most of which are multi-year, to provide an off-campus housing listing service for students, parents, and faculty/staff. Currently, it has existing contracts with 132 universities servicing over 2 million off-campus students. OCP university partners include, among many others, the University of Michigan, Vanderbilt, the University of Arizona, Boston College, the University of Miami, Clemson, the University of Iowa and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“There are over 17 million college students in need of housing near universities paying approximately $100 billion in rent annually,” said Andrew C. Florance, CoStar Group Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “This is a massive market with tremendous growth opportunities for us to partner with more universities and attract more advertisers, especially small independent owners. The majority of OCP’s advertisers are independent owners who are excellent candidates for the full suite of services we plan to offer soon on our Apartments.com network, the most visited apartment internet listing service in the United States with more than 60 million visits per month.”

Florance added, “Each student renter offers us an early opportunity to develop a long-lasting connection to the Apartments.com brand as they near the time when they will enter the workforce.”

CoStar is the leader in operating digital CRE marketplaces, and attracts 49 million unique visitors a month across its North American and European websites. Apartments.com is one of the top apartment marketing sites out there. Over the past 5 years CoStar Group has invested billions of dollars into building the world’s leading online property marketplaces, generating hundreds of millions of leads resulting in millions of successful property transactions for our clients.

James “Duke” Jones, Off Campus Partners President said, “We are excited to become part of CoStar Group and the very successful Apartments.com network. This is an outstanding opportunity to expand what we have developed to service more students and universities across North America.”

SOURCE CoStar Group, Inc.

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