CoStar Group Acquires Rural Listing Site LandWatch.com
Grows Market Leading Network of Rural Real Estate Sites
WASHINGTON, May 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- CoStar Group has announced its acquisition of LandWatch.com — a leading listing site dedicated to land and rural properties. Joining Lands of America and Land And Farm, the addition of LandWatch brings together three of the most prominent land-dedicated sites. Collectively, the network of sites provides buyers with the most comprehensive choice of rural real estate, and property owners with the highest exposure for their listings.
"Solidifying our position as the No. 1 online network of marketplaces for rural real estate, the acquisition of LandWatch.com effectively doubles the exposure and leads available to property sellers and the number of rural listings available to the buyers," said Andrew Florance, Founder and CEO of CoStar Group. "Land is the single most valuable real estate asset class in the U.S., and by dramatically increasing the scale of our existing Land business we are putting in motion a plan to transform the land buying experience."
CoStar is already investing in improving the experience for sellers of land. Recent enhancements include adding a custom mapping tool to make property listings more dynamic and consolidating listing management for Lands of America and Land And Farm into a single property admin area – leveraging top SEO visibility and high-quality traffic to connect millions of active buyers with thousands of sellers.
While LandWatch.com will operate as a stand-alone site, CoStar plans to distribute its 1.4 million listings across the three land sites, allowing prospective buyers to find listings on whichever site they visit. LandWatch.com reported over 3.3 million average monthly visits in 2016 and when added to CoStar's existing traffic builds a combined network of 7.1 million monthly visits.
About CoStar Group
CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGP) is the leading provider of commercial real estate information, analytics and online marketplaces. 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. LoopNet is the most heavily trafficked commercial real estate marketplace online with nearly 11 million registered members. Apartments.com, ApartmentFinder.com, ApartmentHomeLiving.com, Westside Rentals and Apartamentos.com form the premier online apartment resource for renters seeking great apartment homes and provide property managers and owners a proven platform for marketing their properties. Through an exclusive partnership with Move, a subsidiary of News Corporation, Apartments.com is the exclusive provider of apartment community listings across Move's family of websites, which include realtor.com®, doorsteps.com and move.com. CoStar Group's websites attracted an average of over 33 million unique monthly visitors in aggregate in the first quarter of 2017. Headquartered in Washington, DC, CoStar maintains offices throughout the U.S. and in Europe and Canada with a staff of approximately 3,200 worldwide, including the industry's largest professional research organization. For more information, visit www.costargroup.com.
This news release includes "forward-looking statements" including, without limitation, statements regarding CoStar Group'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 possibility that the Company's business plans and needs change, including distribution of listings across CoStar's sites; the risk that the LandWatch.com business cannot be combined successfully or in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the risk that business disruption relating to the LandWatch.com acquisition may be greater than expected; the risk that synergies and expected operating efficiencies from the acquisition of LandWatch.com may not be as expected, may not be fully realized, may take longer to realize than expected or may not drive revenue and earnings growth; the risk that the acquisition does not produce the expected results for CoStar or property sellers or buyers, including increased exposure and leads available to property sellers and increased rural listings available to buyers; and the risk that the combination and integration of LandWatch.com will disrupt CoStar's operations or result in the loss of consumers, property owners or key employees. 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 in CoStar's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, and Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2017, each of which is filed with the SEC, including in the "Risk Factors" section of those filings, as well as CoStar's other filings with the SEC available at the SEC's website (www.sec.gov). 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.
SOURCE CoStar Group, Inc.
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