CoStar Acquires Zonda for $800M to Complete Real Estate Data Empire
CoStar is paying $800 million for Zonda to close the last gap in its real estate data empire. The acquisition of the new-home construction data and marketplace platform gives CoStar coverage across commercial, multifamily, residential resale, and now new builds, completing a decade-long consolidation strategy.
Acquisition Details
- Date: May 29, 2026
- Source: CoStar
- Amount: $800 million in cash
- Expected Close: Second half of 2026
- Impact: Accretive to adjusted earnings per share in the first full year
Zonda’s Offerings
Zonda serves more than 3,000 customers across the homebuilding ecosystem, including many of the largest residential builders, developers, suppliers, and lenders in North America. Its platform covers the full lifecycle of new-home development, from land acquisition and construction forecasting to community marketing and online marketplaces, tracking more than 500 housing metrics.
CoStar’s Strategy
CoStar has spent the past 15 years assembling what is arguably the most comprehensive real estate information platform in the world. Its CoStar Suite dominates commercial real estate research. Like other data platform operators consolidating their markets, the company has expanded methodically through acquisitions, completing more than 40 deals for approximately $7.3 billion over that period.
Filling the Gaps
The pattern is clear. CoStar covered:
- Commercial real estate through its flagship product
- Multifamily rentals through Apartments.com
- Residential resale through Homes.com and Matterport (3D digital twin and AI company)
- The physical built environment through Matterport’s spatial data
New-home construction was the remaining gap, which Zonda fills.
Zonda’s History
Zonda was created through a 2018 merger of Hanley Wood (B2B information services for US residential construction) and Meyers Research (real-time market data for homebuilders). Private equity firm MidOcean Partners orchestrated the combination and rebranded it as Zonda in 2020. The $800 million sale to CoStar represents the kind of PE exit that has become typical in the SaaS and data platform sector, where specialized vertical data companies are built through roll-ups and sold to larger platforms.