CoStar Group, Inc.
Orin's own judgment of how firmly the evidence points one way — not the chance the price goes up.
CoStar Group's operating inflection is now demonstrable rather than speculative: Q2 2026 operating income of $76M versus a $27.2M operating loss in Q2 2025 marks the first quarter of meaningful profitability since the heavy investment cycle began, and the company has beaten EPS estimates in eight consecutive quarters including $0.32 actual versus $0.29 consensus in the most recent print.
Revenue growth is accelerating — 22.5% YoY in Q1 2026 and 18.4% in Q2 2026 — while the stock at $27.38 trades 32% below its 200-day moving average of $40.07 with an RSI of 36.6, and below the $29.89 price at which CEO Andrew Florance purchased 83,300 shares for $2.49M on August 4, 2026. The market is pricing a broken story, but the quarterly trajectory says otherwise; the risk/reward favors accumulation into oversold conditions ahead of the October 27 Q3 2026 earnings release.
What could go wrong
- Margin recovery stalls. FY2025 operating margin was -2.2% and FCF margin just 1.3% on $41M of free cash flow against $3.247B revenue; if Q3 2026 operating income fails to build on Q2's $76M, the inflection narrative breaks.
- Valuation compression. At 149x earnings versus CBRE's 29.5x, CSGP trades at a 405% premium to its peer median PE; any disappointment in the growth narrative could trigger further de-rating from already-depressed levels.
- Capex remains elevated. Capital expenditure was $389M in FY2025 and $637.9M in FY2024, crushing free cash flow; if investment intensity does not taper, FCF generation will remain insufficient to justify the multiple.
- Smart money disinterest. The smart money score is near zero at 0.02 as of Q2 2026 with only 62 funds, and institutional flows have been inconsistent across recent quarters, limiting upside catalysts from positioning.
What would change my mind
Where this comes from: quarterly results · earnings vs estimates · technicals, 2 Oct · insider trades. Orin's read on CSGP; not advice.
How has the share price moved?
Down 59.0% over twelve months, from $78.12 on 27 Oct 2025 to $32.01 at the Tue 27 Oct 2026 close. Its highest close in that time was $78.23 on 28 Oct 2025; the last close is 59.1% below it.
- Green line: the closing price each trading day.
- Grey line: the average closing price over the last 50 trading days.
- Dashed amber line: the same over the last 200 trading days — a slower, smoother line.
- Bars along the bottom: shares traded each day — green when it closed higher than the day before, rose when lower (the most, 37.8M, on 15 May 2026).
- Flags: the company's filings, on the day they were made (a 10-Q is the quarterly report and a 10-K the annual report; an 8-K reports a major event).
On file
All CSGP filingsLargest holders · 13F Q2 2026
Money flow| Filer | Position | Of fund |
|---|---|---|
| Vanguard Portfolio Management | $1.1B | 0.0% |
| BlackRock | $957.6M | 0.0% |
| Vanguard Capital Management | $755.7M | 0.0% |
| BAMCO | $612.5M | 0.9% |
| State Street | $521.4M | 0.0% |
| Geode Capital Management | $343.3M | 0.0% |
| AQR Capital Management | $239.2M | 0.1% |
| Invesco | $192.8M | 0.0% |
| EdgePoint Investment Group | $168.5M | 1.3% |
| Norges Bank | $168.5M | 0.0% |
95 of the 815 filers we track · quarter ended Q2 2026 · positions, not flows
Insiders, last 24 months: 80 Form 4 filings; open-market trades net $1.1M. Of the 50 on hand, 7 were open-market purchases and 2 sales — the rest are grants, option exercises and tax withholding.
Ask Orin about CSGP
Orin answers questions about CSGP from its filings, transcripts and numbers — with the source behind every claim. Your own desk starts with 3 free days, card required.
Start 3 free days →How is it priced, against its own past and its sector?
Priced at 73.2× its last 12 months of profit (Tue 27 Oct close); the typical Real Estate company on the NASDAQ is at 37.0×.
| Measure | Now | Its usual | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | 73.2× | — | 37.0× |
| P/S | 3.53×below usual | 14.0× | — |
| EV/EBITDA | 26.6×below usual | 49.2× | — |
| P/B | 1.6×below usual | 4.5× | — |
- P/E: no usual level — it ran from 83.1× to 4002× over its last 5 fiscal years, so a middle value says little.
- "Its usual" is the middle of its own last 5 fiscal years.
P/E: the share price divided by one year of profit per share — roughly how many years of today's profit the price pays for. A company that loses money has no P/E.
P/S: the company's total market value divided by one year of revenue. Used when there is no profit to measure.
EV/EBITDA: the price of the whole company (its shares plus its debt, minus its cash) divided by one year of operating profit before interest, tax and write-downs.
P/B: the share price divided by the book value per share — what the company owns minus what it owes, as its accounts record it. When book value is tiny, P/B swings wildly and says little.
What do the analysts who cover it publish?
The analysts' average 12-month price target is $36.36 (from $26 to $44) — 14% above the Tue 27 Oct close price. That is their published opinion, not Orin's.
$36.36
$26 – $44 · +14% against the last close
- 7 buy or overweight
- 7 hold
- 1 underweight or sell
Price target: the share price an analyst publishes for about 12 months ahead. It is the opinion of the firm that wrote it; the average is across the firms that cover the company.
Overweight / underweight: analysts' rating words: overweight means the firm expects the stock to do better than the others it covers, underweight worse. Their words, not Orin's.
How is it priced next to the companies it is compared to?
Priced at 73.2× its last 12 months of profit. Only 2 of the 2 companies it is compared to made a profit (SPGI 27.3×, VRSK 32.0×), so there is no typical P/E.
| Company | Market value | P/E | EV/EBITDA | Gross margin | Net margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CSGPCoStar Group, Inc. | $13B | 73.2× | 26.6× | 76.2% | 4.9% | 2% |
| SPGIS&P Global Inc. | $132B | 27.3× | 17.4× | 70.9% | 30.5% | 17% |
| VRSKVerisk Analytics, Inc. | $28B | 32.0× | 16.3× | 67.7% | 27.7% | n/m |
- VRSK: return on equity is not meaningful (n/m) — book value is below zero.
- The list of companies is the data vendor's choice, so it can include a company a person would not have picked.
Market value: the share price times the number of shares — what the whole company is priced at.
P/E: the share price divided by one year of profit per share — roughly how many years of today's profit the price pays for. A company that loses money has no P/E.
EV/EBITDA: the price of the whole company (its shares plus its debt, minus its cash) divided by one year of operating profit before interest, tax and write-downs.
Gross margin: the share of each $1 of sales left after the direct cost of making what was sold.
Net margin: the share of each $1 of sales kept as profit after every cost. Below zero, the company lost money.
ROE: return on equity: one year of profit as a share of the shareholders' money in the business (its book value).
Is it priced high or low compared with its own past?
Priced at 73.2× its last 12 months of profit (Tue 27 Oct close). It has no full fiscal year on file since its history starts, so there is nothing of its own to compare with.
- Now73.2×
P/E: the share price divided by one year of profit per share — roughly how many years of today's profit the price pays for. A company that loses money has no P/E.
Fiscal year (FY): the company's own 12-month accounting year, which need not match the calendar year.
How has its sector been priced?
Real Estate companies on the NASDAQ were priced at a typical 37.0× their yearly profit (Tue 27 Oct close).
- Now37.0×
- Each year is the middle of that calendar year's daily sector P/E; "Now" is the Tue 27 Oct close figure, the same one in the table above.
Sector P/E: the middle P/E of the companies in the same sector on the same stock exchange, as the data vendor works it out each day.
What does a cash-flow model say a share is worth?
A standard cash-flow model puts it at $21 a share — 36% below the $32.33 price it was computed against (27 Oct).
| Model | Value a share | Against the price then |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $21 | 36% below $32.33 |
| Levered | $31 | 3% below $32.33 |
Discounted cash flow: a model's estimate of what the company is worth today, from the cash it is forecast to make in future years. Small changes in the forecast move it a lot, and it says little about a company that loses money.
Standard / levered: two versions of the cash-flow model: the standard one counts the cash before the company pays its lenders, the levered one after.