Will Google’s Real Estate Listing Test Reshape CoStar Group’s (CSGP) Homes.com-Centric Growth Narrative?

• Recently, reports emerged that Google is testing homes-for-sale listings directly in its search results, raising questions about the long-term resilience of CoStar Group’s Homes.com-focused growth strategy amid ongoing legal disputes.
• At the same time, CoStar’s own analytics highlighted Charlotte as the top-performing large U.S. retail market in 2025, underscoring the company’s influence in shaping how investors and occupiers understand local property trends.
• We’ll now examine how the threat of Google encroaching on online real estate listings could reshape CoStar Group’s investment narrative.

Find companies with promising cash flow potential yet trading below their fair value.

CoStar Group Investment Narrative Recap

To own CoStar Group today, you generally need to believe that its data, marketplaces and consumer portals like Homes.com can justify premium pricing even as real estate cycles and competition shift. Google’s search test directly in listings speaks to the biggest near term catalyst and risk: whether Homes.com’s heavy investment can translate into sustainable traffic and lead economics before platform and legal pressures dilute returns.

Against that backdrop, CoStar’s own ranking of Charlotte as the top large U.S. retail market in 2025 highlights how its analytics still shape capital allocation decisions, even while Homes.com faces questions around data access and potential re-routing of consumer traffic. That contrast between influence in commercial analytics and vulnerability in residential portals now sits at the heart of how investors weigh near term cost pressure against the longer term payoff.

Yet behind CoStar’s growth story, investors should also be watching the emerging legal disputes around Homes.com’s access to MLS data and broker payments, which...

Read the full narrative on CoStar Group (it's free!)

CoStar Group's narrative projects $4.7 billion revenue and $866.2 million earnings by 2028. This requires 16.9% yearly revenue growth and about a $762 million earnings increase from $104.2 million today.

Uncover how CoStar Group's forecasts yield a $91.94 fair value, a 42% upside to its current price.

Exploring Other Perspectives

Three members of the Simply Wall St Community value CoStar Group between US$67.76 and US$139.70, highlighting very different expectations for its long term upside. When you set those against concerns about Homes.com’s rising costs and platform risk from Google’s search experiments, it becomes even more important to test your own assumptions and compare several independent views before deciding how CoStar might fit into a portfolio.

Explore 3 other fair value estimates on CoStar Group - why the stock might be worth just $67.76!

Build Your Own CoStar Group Narrative

Disagree with existing narratives? Create your own in under 3 minutes - extraordinary investment returns rarely come from following the herd.

• A great starting point for your CoStar Group research is our analysis highlighting 3 key rewards and 2 important warning signs that could impact your investment decision.
• Our free CoStar Group research report provides a comprehensive fundamental analysis summarized in a single visual - the Snowflake - making it easy to evaluate CoStar Group's overall financial health at a glance.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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