Can anyone give any insight as to what costar costs? I know it varies, and their website is very ambiguous, but I wanted to see if anyone knew what it would cost for a single license for a small investing business. I am interested in the full package with comps, lease comps, tenants, etc. In addition does anyone know any tricks for getting the service cheaper?

I have heard from various sources $200 to $500 per month depending on your deal

@sean is correct. Costar monitors Users closely; but, they are reasonable in negotiating with new clients. Give them a call and a rep can model a program to suit your needs. If you do decide to sign a contract, note that there is a notification period to terminate the agreement that they enforce strictly. If you fail to notify them, the contract renews automatically.

A local broker said something recently that bears noting: "a lot of brokers utilize CoStar and Loopnet these days. They have data, but they don't know anything about the properties, because they've never visited them." Not all brokers use costar either. Shoe leather remains an important tool in understanding any market.

Mark,

CoStar is one of the more expensive services for accessing the data you're looking for. Typically, they require a 1 year commitment and will price their service based on which level of access you want. For pricing, you'll need to speak with one of their reps, knowing that their rates are negotiable.

@Mark Vieira Are you an agent? What type of property are you interested in? I just signed up for Prospect Now, it's $79 per month. It's usually $89, but they had a 'coupon'. You can go on to Youtube, and search Prospect Now, there's several of their training videos that show you all that it does. You can run comps, find owners, absentee owners, etc. It's for commercial, apartments, and industrial.

I'm not in any way affiliated with the company, just a customer.

I'm working with a rep now to come up with a plan for 2 users. Keep in mind they bought Loopnet about a year ago. They had to make some changes in order to comply with the FTC regarding that buyout (monopoly). Their pricing is better than it used to be from my research, and the commitments are 1 year instead of 2. Still you need to give them 60 day notice to cancel or it automatically renews.

Hello all,

Here are the CoStar Rates as of this morning directly from the Southern California Rep (we have been long time LoopNet users so rates may be higher for those not on LoopNet):

"Your office does qualify for our current promotion, which we are only offering to a small group of LoopNet clients.

CoStar Suite:

1 Market - $295 (Normally $912)
2 Markets - $590
3 Markets (contiguous markets) - $690
California Statewide Data - $985
US Data: $1,290"

Worth Mentioning: LoopNet is phasing out their commercial comps in an effort to get people to pay the higher price for CoStar, since CoStar recently purchased LoopNet and they don't want to compete with themselves.

Hope this helps

I am in the Northern California Bay Area. I provide tax appeals in all 58 counties. I am a LoopNet premium member who signed on with Costar at $775 per month last year. My coverage Included the following Counties:

1. Alameda

2.Contra Costa

3.Santa Clara

4.L.A.

They have just quoted me $1300 monthly for the whole state for next year. I am holding out for the rep to sharpen her pencil. They say that this quote is a huge discount off their normal statewide coverage fee of $4,200, monthly but she cannot show me a published Costar price list so anyone can make up inflated numbers like that. I still need LoopNet because it gives me info om duplexes,triplexes and fourplexes wheras Costar does not.

Mike

@Karen Margrave

How's your experience been with Prospect Now? I would imagine that you were a Loopnet user at some point correct? If so any comparisons that you can make? Thanks!

@Chris Winterhalter Hi Chris. I used LoopNet to advertise a project we were going to be developing in Fullerton, a medical office project. I've used it many times over the years, and it does bring in some leads, mostly from other brokers, but that works for our purposes. Costar and LoopNet are owned by the same company, and they were running the LoopNet ads on CoStar, not sure if it's something that was a short term thing or if it's all the time.

As to prospect now, I wanted to use that to assemble a mailing list of phyicians and medical related businesses in Fullerton, but it doesn't seem like the information was as current as I needed.

I also happened across Agent Pro 24/7 (I think that's the name) and they're good for getting property info.

What type of information are you trying to get?

HI All,

Most of you are spot on about pricing, strictness about the renewal term, and promotions going on.

However, our pricing is not the same and varies for each and every person as each person needs the services customized to their needs. Some people qualify for the pricing that "Nic D" shared, some don't.

Thank you,

Marie Gordon

Senior Account Executive

CoStar Group

I forgot to mention that the promotional pricing that Nic D. mentions does expire at the end of the year and will ABSOLUTELY increase on January 1st.

@Karen Margrave

I was just curious in relation to the accuracy of records from Prospect Now vs. Loopnet. Many times property records are not extremely accurate in Loopnet like they are in CoStar. Especially in relation to mortgage information (hence pricing).

I would use Prospect Now for hotel and multi-family owner information for mailing lists. I might be better off getting my records from the title company or list source though. Any thoughts?

@Chris Winterhalter As I mentioned, I have only used LoopNet to advertise, not for the property data, so I can't answer that question. Sorry.

@Mark Vieira to get the "closest" to accurate information for real estate research you have to go with CoStar. There are many other services out there which can get you lower pricing but I can guarantee you 90% you will go running back to CoStar. What sets CoStar apart is that it's the industry standard and it is updated every day by brokers and agents alike with property data on the market. If you want reliable information and especially if you have investors backing you and cannot afford weak market analysis making a deal go sour, I hope you are using CoStar, it's not perfect, but it's the best out there. That being said, the basic packages like one for Los Angeles will run you about $1,000 a month. You need to tack on the lease and sales comps to make CoStar truly useful which is about another $850 a month. I managed to get a good deal so all in all I pay around $15,000 per year which includes all sales and lease comps plus market information for SoCal and Las Vegas. Remember, CoStar comps is updated by brokers themselves, other places like REIS have a staff of around 100 people who try and do this data themselves which is impossible to replicate CoStars superiority when it's updated daily by thousands of brokers in the market. Plus it's always humorous to say the least to see their quarterly video presentations on each industry as they are the most bland geeks ever... Nonetheless their market research is a valuable tool as well.

I have noticed that must of the people in this discussion have/are active users or LoopNet or Costar... I am working on building a CRE leasing platform where agents/brokers can connect with potential clients in a very cost efficient way.

I would really appreciate if you would help me understand the following:

1. What makes a person a good quality lead for a leasing contract on a property?

2. How does a potential lead gets pre-qualify (leasing a property)? 

3. What are a few things you don't like about LoopNet/Costar, Cityfeet? 

Thanks in advance

Costar quoted me $2,145 per month today for nationwide access to their Market Analytics package - which is essentially the "whole enchilada" - encompassing all of the following individual products: Property, Comps, Tenant, Portfolio Strategy, Lease Comps, Lease Analysis and Go. This pricing was for one or two seats.

Anyone know how negotiable they are?

Why would you spend almost 26,000 a year to them when you can get all of this from a commercial broker?

Unless you are a commercial broker.

It depends on what you focus on.

I choose to spend my money mailing to property owners and working the tax records for only the time.

Costar is a middle man and it is outrageous what they charge. Locking yourself into contracts at high monthly fees is a sure way to go out of business. I learned long ago to keep costs low and stay efficient. I do not need all the accolades just the business and closings.

Costar and Loopnet merged. Every 6 months some newbie at Costar or Loopnet will call trying to sell me crap. I get through the spiel in about 20 seconds and tell them no thanks. 

These workers get paid on people committing to contracts.   

Chris Reeves,

If you have  a very large brokerage with lots of people to offset the cost then it might make sense.

See if they have a no contract trial where you can cancel in a few months if you do not like what you see. Make sure to get it all in writing and trust nothing verbally from them. 

Originally posted by @Joel Owens :

Why would you spend almost 26,000 a year to them when you can get all of this from a commercial broker?

Unless you are a commercial broker.

It depends on what you focus on.

I choose to spend my money mailing to property owners and working the tax records for only the time.

Well, as a private investor - not a commercial broker - I suppose whether or not the price is worth it depends what your time is worth, how much capital you are working with, whether or not you want to keep your market and deal analysis separate and independent from the interests of commercial brokers, how many markets you're targeting, and what you would have to pay someone to do the manual research for you. 

There are scenarios in which an independent data source would be quite helpful - such as when a broker brings you a large off market deal in a different state - and you would like to be able to look at historical variance in rents and occupancy going back a number of years to help feel out the stability of the sub-market, etc.

Their capabilities are very impressive - the question is simply whether the ROI is there from using it given the very high price they charge.

Originally posted by @Joel Owens :

Chris Reeves,

If you have  a very large brokerage with lots of people to offset the cost then it might make sense.

See if they have a no contract trial where you can cancel in a few months if you do not like what you see. Make sure to get it all in writing and trust nothing verbally from them. 

 All good advice - thank you. They are claiming they only do one year contracts with no trial periods. Someone on another forum told me they will in fact do month to month at a higher price. We will see what they say.

Yeah don't do the contracts. They are trying to lock you in. All you have to do is Google to see nightmares from contracts.

There are other data providers as well with reports for less money.

REIS is one of them.

The level of data provided by Costar is very good but the question is how much data is needed for what you want to do? You might not need some of the information given in an all inclusive package. They used to break out packages but I haven't checked in awhile.

The good commercial brokers won't sell you stuff. They will tell you what they think and why something may or may not be a good fit for your goals. Also make sure the broker is an investor themselves so they can look at a property from more than just a transactional standpoint.

@Chris Reeves I was quoted $4,500/mo for the national package. They said they have a different rate for investors than for brokers; the broker rate is similar to what you mentioned. I am sure there are further discounts possible. The prices are indeed steep, but as @Thomas Alexander mentioned above, the info is top notch and could be very worthwhile depending on your specific needs. 

@Ludwig Diaz I wouldn't say "top notch" per se. It's the lesser of crap out there when it comes to CRE market data. As Joel Owens said earlier, most of the information can be obtained by relationships with brokers. To put it into perspective, would you pay for a software that costs as much as a full-time employee knowing that will a little more leg work you can find the information you seek from brokers?

I created a highly targeted mailing list of apartment owners from co-star. About 20% were sent back to me. For the cost of the system... I feel it should be far more accurate. 

I do like the co-star setup  very much, don't get me wrong.