CoStar Group Reviews

Pros

free trip to DC. Company car.

Cons

Too many to list. Just do yourself a favor and stay as far away from this company as possible. They are the devil. As a field researcher it all depends on what territory you cover. One manager is responsible for about 10-12 field researchers. Some managers are decent, some are great and some are just the most lousy human being you will ever come across. Unfortunately I had the lousy type as my manager. If you are in the southern California or Arizona area then you will get the same manager that I had.

Metrics standard were absurd. They make you do all these pointlesss little things that is just a complete waste of time. My manager took micromanagement to the most extreme level. I spent the majority of my day just trying to clean up data that I never even cause. The data entry software that they give is called Rover and it is just a complete piece of garbage. You will be spending your entire day driving around and trying to get Rover to work without crashing on you. Oh yeah, you don't even have the luxury of sitting in front of a desk to do the data entry. You have to do the data entry in the car. Everyday I went to work and all I could ever think of was all the new an interesting ways different ways I could kick my manager's ass even though he was thousands of miles away. I'm glad I don't work for costar anymore. This company exemplifies everything that is bad about corporate America.

Advice to Senior Management

You guys suck! What goes around comes around!

Pros

The company has a very nice buliding in Washington DC. They make it very comfortable for the employees and provide wellness, nice benefits, nice workstations, a great environment, and for the most part, the managers are very nice and they all are eager to assist you including senior management.

Cons

I was excited to get this job because I had used CoStar products and I thought this would really launch my career in real estate. Boy was I fooled. The research associate job is nothing but a glorified customer service rep. asking questions over the phone. You are given a quota as to how many phone calls you are required to make. They tell you that each call must be over 1 minute long. You have a script of information called "High Priority Questions" that you must ask. You must ask the real estate brokers the same questions on every call even though you already have the information. Lets say you are speaking to the secretary, you have to ask the secretary dumb questions as well. It make you seem like an idiot. They record each call and they record your computer screens, Quality assurance monitors when someone sends you a request and how long it takes you to enter it in. If you do not enter it in by close of business the same day, you are dinged for it. Even if you were not at work that day, you are still dinged for it. If another researcher makes an error on one of your properties, you are liable for the error. You will be penalized for it. You can have a perfect call but if you do not ask for additional listings, you will have a call that is unacceptable. My manager wrote the entire team up for not asking for additional listings 100% of the time. As a researcher, you harass the brokers. You have to repeatedly call them until they answer the phone. You are instructed to call them, email them, and then call them again. If they dont call you back then you are told to call the owner of the property and let them know they broker is not respoding to your calls and you are trying to help the broker sell the property. This is the ultimate sin in real estate. That broker could loose the listing because of that. You have to call the tennants and ask them how much rent they pay or the terms of their lease agreement and then costar publishes that data over the internet. They will even have you call the neighbors of the tenant and get information about the tenant. There was a guy new to the research floor who had just got out of training. Your first 90 days you are not suppose to be held accountable for meeting the performance standards sicne you are still learning. He was on the floor for 3 weeks and was written up. Our manager was an inexperienced manager. You are expected to review each call to rate your own call. After Quality Assurance reviews it, you have to dispute their findings because they only report on your worst calls. They get paid to find the bad calls not the good calls.

I resigned last tuesday with a 2 weeks notice and I was walked out the door upon submitting my resignation notice. No exit interview or nothing. Dont know when I get my last check or when my insurance stops.

Advice to Senior Management

You need to ask yourself, does this make sense? When you hear the complaints from employees, you should listen. You are always hiring sales and research associate but are quick to fire them. Why dont you try coaching them instead. In my case, I just didnt care anymore because I knew I had another job and was just waiting for it to get closer to my start date. I think among researchers, the quality assurance department has an incompetence rating that is higher than congress.

Pros

Very good entry level job out of college that pays much better than than most jobs. The benefits are also better than most comparable companies. For RA's this is a 40 hour week job and you don't take your work home. (not same for managers) Great coworkers and nice facilities to work. The company is financial steady and often makes great expansion and investment decisions. CEO is always forward thinking and finding new revenues of income along with staying ahead of technology.

Cons

The metrics are always changing and many quarters the majority of employees do not meet goals set as they are too high and management and they are still raised the following quarter. Metrics do not measure quality of work or customer satisfaction.

QA department has tired to measure quality but that always changes and they failed to truely measure an employees work. QA department often tells management how they should conduct research and is too close to truely audit and sample employees work. Those with lower quality are given high cash bonus'. (At times they have also been found later "cheating" the metrics)

There is a culture of fear within the organization and at least 30% of the employees (bottom 30) are always fearful of being fired. You can get far within the company if you are favored by upper management but careful this may not last long. The company has a "what have you done for me lately" view on all employees so you can quickly go from being thought of a great employee to one that is headed out the door.

Research associates as a whole are treated as the bottom class of the company. Where sales are being given great incentives and have a great environment to work in the research staff is being told they need to watch budget for rewards.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat all employees with respect and appreciate that research associates are the reason you have a product. Challenge employees to be creative and take ownership over their work rather than micromanage them to death.

Set true min. standards and use that for performance improvement rather than rankings, there will always be a bottom 30%. Stop with so many metrics each day - Weekly or bi-weekly is really all that is needed. The more you push metrics the more stress you create and the more employees are going to feel the need to be dishonest with their work.

Try to do the researchers job and test out metrics first - they are not as easy as you think.

Pros

- Great colleagues
- Terrific product
- Many verticals of product with opportunities for new sales
- Local managers want to see you succeed

Cons

- Micro management
- Low pay for sales force
- Product is very expensive
- Monthly quota directly correlating with monthly cancellations is an unfair way to do things

Advice to Senior Management

If senior management is going to play Big Brother, then they might want to choose a pay structure that is actually fair to sales people and stick with it. Maybe then, the turnover rate won't be so high. Also if management is going to hold AEs responsible for cancellations than they need to hold researchers equally responsible.

Pros

The office is in a great location and the space is very nice. Pay and benefits are relatively good for th job.

Cons

I was excited to start at CoStar because I wanted to work in CRE. However shortly after starting I became disillusioned. By setting up metrics so that researchers compete against each other and against other markets, they really undermine the team spirit that a company should have.

I felt disrespected working there and felt as though my manager treated me like a child, even as I was performing in the top 30%. Setting QA's metrics so that they profit from researchers' mistakes is seriously unhealthy.

I am now in a job that I love. My boss trusts me and respects me, and in turn I am incentivized to work hard, and I'm rewarded for it. I'm writing a review because after a several months away from CoStar, I realize that they offer a truly terrible work environment. Now, I am almost excited to go to work each morning because I work with great people toward a common goal, compared to pure dread for going to CoStar.

I would not recommend that anyone accept a job with CoStar. I hope that this forum helps potential employees know about what they will face there.

Advice to Senior Management

I think that entry level employees need to be treated as adults and with respect. If the company put half as much effort into improving corporate culture and moral as they do to micromanagement, I think they would have to deal with much less turnover and could improve their bottom line -- it's got to be expensive to conduct constant training classes.

Pros

Good working environment and good technical support.

Cons

Very unstable working environment. Too much turnover.
No trust and respect on employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward your employee with trust and respect.

Pros

You get a salary, benefits, and time off.

Cons

Everything else at Costar was horrible. I'd rather get my teeth pulled.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect your sales people, team members and customers.

Pros

Salary is competitive for research job right out of college. Benefits are also competitive when 401k is matched.

Cons

Huge communication disconnect between lower and upper management. All decisions are top down without regard for lower level employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Make decisions based on how they will affect the research department because they are necessary to the company's success.

Pros

Thankfully, I am out. It took a lot of praying and contentment to get out (and I recommend this to everyone). I liked this job the first two years of my employment. Slowly, did not like it and dreaded going to work. I was able to meet metrics and such till they put me in the crappiest markets out there. I did everything I could to get out of the bottom 30 but couldn't. I got out in time because I knew as an SRA my QTD ranking needed to be at 50% or higher or I'd get demoted.

Now for the good things: I liked the location that I worked at. Easy to get to and a lot of shops near by to run errands before/after work or during lunch. I like how the company gave us the option for 30 mins or hour lunch break. Not a lot of companies offer this. Benefits are great. Every now and then Columbia gave us a BBQ, free breakfast, and events to do. Benefits are great- 9 or 10 holidays off, Vacation hours build up based on how many years you worked there, and get time for wedding leave and funeral time.

Cons

I really do not know how other SRA's got a way with being in the bottom and not getting demoted. I guess managers pick and chose who they like here. So my first though is- managers have their favorites. If you are not one of them, then my advice is, meet your goals and quotas. Second I would like to say, I dont know how managers are blind to see this- piratically EVERYONE IS USING A STOP WATCH for their one minute calls. I dont know how many times I have seen it on their phones or computer screens walking by cubes. Third, while I hated the last market I was on before I left, metrics and quotas CAN be achievable if you work really hard. Finally, CoStar- if you give the chance for people to fill out a "Do I like working at CoStar" survey- take out the question about their title and how long they have worked there. Its a dead give away when you put those two on there and who their manager is. Leave the questions you want to know and ask who their manager is. But take out their tenure and title.

Advice to Senior Management

I just didn't like the stress and metrics and managers. And I didn't like the fact you all were promoting people in the bottom rather than promoting those who worked their butt off and were in the top %, got great reviews from clients!!! or you promoted people who cheat and gossip all the time.

Pros

Large growing company that is and industry leader. The standard in CRE research, everyone in the business uses them. Good for building industry specific knowledge.

Cons

Super micro-management. All aspects of your work are tracked via various computer metrics ( calls made, attempted, calls monitored, rated and reviewed). High employee turnover, results in most senoir management being people that cant get job other places or have other personality flaws.

Advice to Senior Management

Some management is incompitent. Not enough consideration taken for different markets and ablity to gather data in said market, which all effects bonus and regard within the company.