CoStar Selected for Prestigious S&P 500

The U.S. real estate data giant CoStar has been selected for inclusion on the prestigious S&P 500 index. The firm's inclusion on the index will be effective prior to trading on the 19th of September.

The Standard and Poor 500, known as the S&P 500, is a benchmark of the American equities market and is comprised of the shares of 500 leading U.S. companies from across a range of industries.

“It is a great honor to be selected for inclusion in the S&P 500 index,” said Andrew Florance, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CoStar Group. “For 36 years CoStar Group has been committed to digitizing the world’s real estate, empowering all people to discover properties, insights, and connections that improve their businesses and lives. Today, we have more than 25 brands under the CoStar Group umbrella serving hundreds of thousands of customers around the globe.”

CoStar has a reputation as a company that puts a great emphasis on generating value for investors and cranking out record revenue figures on a regular basis. Today's announcement will be seen by some as vindication for a demanding workplace culture that has generated plenty of negative headlines around CoStar recently.

“I am incredibly proud of this achievement, which would not have been possible without all of the hard work and dedication of our world-class team,” added Mr. Florance. “Our talented people, both past and present, are the foundation upon which CoStar Group was built. I also would like to thank our hundreds of thousands of customers around the world - many of whom have supported CoStar Group for decades - for their ongoing trust and partnership. Joining the S&P 500 is a validation of the faith that they have placed in our company, our team, our products, and our services.”

Founded by Florance in 1986, CoStar has gone on to dominate the American commercial real estate business with its eponymous CoStar market intelligence product as well as market-leading portal domains.

The company is also moving into residential real estate to challenge Zillow. CoStar's PR machine has been busy laying the ground for the company's residential portal play by claiming that its soon-to-be-launched portal, Homes.com will not use agents' listings to generate leads for rivals in the way that Zillow does.