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CSGP, CoStar Group Inc.

Commercial Services & Supplies capital-intensive CyclicalSerial acquirer

CoStar Group is a leading provider of online real estate marketplaces, information, analytics, and 3D digital twin technology in the property markets.

We own and operate leading online marketplaces for real estate in the U.S., Australia, Europe, Canada, and Asia-Pacific based on the numbers of unique visitors and site visits per month.

Over time, we have expanded and continue to expand our services for real estate online marketplaces, information, analytics, and 3D digital twin technology to address the evolving needs of the industry as it grows and evolves.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CSGP · CoStar Group Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$3.2B

+18.7% YoY · 14% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.4B 5-yr avg $2.5B

Gross margin 79% 5-yr avg 80%

Operating margin −0.8% 5-yr avg 10.5%

ROIC −0% 5-yr avg 6%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 13%

Free cash flow margin 7% 5-yr avg 10%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Commercial Real Estate (55%) and Residential Real Estate (45%).
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 64% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 8 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 79% and operating margin about 17% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −2.2% and 26% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 9%). By owner earnings: roughly 21% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 2 segments, the largest Commercial Real Estate at 55%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Commercial Real Estate55%$1.8B
Residential Real Estate45%$1.5B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$838M	$965M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.5B	$2.7B	$3.2B	$3.4B	RevenueRevenue
79%	77%	77%	79%	81%	82%	81%	80%	80%	79%	79%	Gross marginGross mgn
15%	15%	13%	13%	18%	13%	16%	16%	16%	17%	16%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$145M	$174M	$274M	$364M	$289M	$432M	$451M	$282M	$5M	($72M)	($26M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
17.3%	18.0%	23.0%	26.0%	17.4%	22.2%	20.7%	11.5%	0.2%	−2.2%	−0.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$85M	$123M	$238M	$315M	$227M	$293M	$370M	$375M	$139M	$7M	$25M	Net incomeNet inc.
38%	26%	16%	19%	16%	28%	24%	25%	34%	—	49%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$201M	$235M	$335M	$458M	$486M	$470M	$479M	$490M	$393M	$430M	$529M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$70M	$64M	$78M	$81M	$117M	$140M	$138M	$108M	$147M	$263M	$298M	DepreciationDeprec.
$9M	$9M	($22M)	$9M	$89M	($26M)	($104M)	($78M)	$18M	($34M)	$0	Working capital & otherWC & other
$19M	$24M	$30M	$0	$0	$124M	$35M	$118M	$579M	$307M	$298M	CapexCapex
2.2%	2.5%	2.5%	0.0%	0.0%	6.4%	1.6%	4.8%	21.2%	9.5%	8.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$182M	$210M	$306M	$458M	$486M	$346M	$444M	$372M	$246M	$123M	$231M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
21.7%	21.8%	25.7%	32.7%	29.3%	17.8%	20.3%	15.2%	9.0%	3.8%	6.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$182M	$210M	$306M	$458M	$486M	$346M	$444M	$372M	($186M)	$123M	$231M	Free cash flowFCF
21.7%	21.8%	25.7%	32.7%	29.3%	17.8%	20.3%	15.2%	−6.8%	3.8%	6.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$10M	$48M	$418M	$438M	$426M	$193M	$6M	$100M	$277M	$2.3B	$1.6B	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$500M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
6%	9%	12%	12%	9%	11%	12%	7%	0%	-0%	-0%	ROICROIC
5%	5%	8%	9%	4%	5%	5%	5%	2%	0%	0%	Return on equityROE
5%	5%	8%	9%	4%	5%	5%	5%	2%	0%	0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$567M	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$3.7B	$3.8B	$5.0B	$5.2B	$4.7B	$1.6B	$1.2B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$49M	$61M	$89M	$92M	$104M	$125M	$154M	$190M	$188M	$234M	$269M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$11M	$9M	$6M	$8M	$16M	$22M	$29M	$23M	$44M	$42M	$39M	Accounts payablePayables
$37M	$52M	$83M	$85M	$88M	$103M	$125M	$167M	$144M	$198M	$244M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$627M	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$3.9B	$4.0B	$5.2B	$5.5B	$5.0B	$2.1B	$1.7B	Current assetsCur. assets
$155M	$147M	$154M	$207M	$331M	$339M	$373M	$456M	$552M	$746M	$777M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
4.0×	8.8×	7.9×	5.8×	11.8×	11.8×	13.9×	12.0×	9.0×	2.8×	2.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.5B	$4.9B	$5.0B	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.2B	$2.9B	$3.3B	$3.9B	$6.9B	$7.3B	$8.4B	$8.9B	$9.3B	$10.5B	$10.2B	Total assetsAssets
$338M	$0	$4M	$134M	$987M	$988M	$989M	$991M	$992M	$993M	$994M	Total debtDebt
($229M)	($1.2B)	($1.1B)	($937M)	($2.7B)	($2.8B)	($4.0B)	($4.2B)	($3.7B)	($640M)	($222M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
14.5×	19.3×	96.7×	139.0×	—	—	14.0×	9.1×	0.2×	-3.8×	-1.5×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.7B	$2.7B	$3.0B	$3.4B	$5.4B	$5.7B	$6.9B	$7.3B	$7.6B	$8.3B	$7.9B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
4.3%	4.0%	3.5%	3.7%	3.2%	3.3%	3.4%	3.5%	3.3%	6.0%	6.0%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
324M	336M	364M	366M	383M	394M	398M	407M	408M	421M	414M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$2.58	$2.88	$3.27	$3.82	$4.33	$4.93	$5.49	$6.03	$6.71	$7.72	$8.24	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.26	$0.37	$0.65	$0.86	$0.59	$0.74	$0.93	$0.92	$0.34	$0.02	$0.06	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.56	$0.63	$0.84	$1.25	$1.27	$0.88	$1.11	$0.91	$0.60	$0.29	$0.56	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.56	$0.63	$0.84	$1.25	$1.27	$0.88	$1.11	$0.91	$-0.46	$0.29	$0.56	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.06	$0.07	$0.08	$0.00	$0.00	$0.31	$0.09	$0.29	$1.42	$0.73	$0.72	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$5.10	$7.90	$8.29	$9.30	$14.02	$14.49	$17.27	$18.04	$18.52	$19.81	$19.11	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2019 are restated ×10 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.9%/yr	+12.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−7.0%/yr	−25.4%/yr
EPS	−26.4%/yr	−51.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	+32.5%/yr	—
Book value / share	+16.3%/yr	+7.2%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Residential Real Estate+19.6%
“Residential Real Estate revenue increased $239 million, or 20%, to $1.5 billion due to: •an increase in the number of agents and properties advertised on our network, partially offset by a reduction in average price and •$95 million of revenue from the Domain Acquisition completed in August 2025. 45 Gross Profit and Cost of Revenue.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

421Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−0%low FY2025

Gross margin

79%low FY2017

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$123Mowner earningsvs.$7Mnet incomelow FY2025

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $7M of profit into $123M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$7M

Owner earnings$123M · 4% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$7M	$139M	$375M	$370M	$293M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$263M	+$147M	+$108M	+$138M	+$140M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$194M	+$89M	+$85M	+$75M	+$64M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$34M	+$18M	−$78M	−$104M	−$26M
Cash from operations	$430M	$393M	$490M	$479M	$470M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$307M	−$147M	−$118M	−$35M	−$124M
Owner earnings	$123M	$246M	$372M	$444M	$346M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$432M	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$123M	($186M)	$372M	$444M	$346M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	4%	9%	15%	20%	18%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $194M), owner earnings is nearer ($71M).

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? -3.8×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($72M) ÷ interest expense $19M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$640M

Net cash

Cash $1.6B − debt $993M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $640M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 7d

Tight

DSO 26 + DIO 3 − DPO 22 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 9%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range -0%–12%; -0% latest = NOPAT ($36M) ÷ invested capital $7.7B

Industry peers: median 4%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran -0% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 20%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 4%–33%; latest $123M = operating cash $430M − maintenance capex $307M

Industry peers: median 21%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 4% of revenue this year, a 20% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $194M of SBC) leaves ($71M).
Are earnings backed by cash? 61.43×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $430M ÷ net income $7M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 407%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $500M ÷ Owner Earnings $123M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $123M of Owner Earnings, $500M (407%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $500M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $194M stock comp, the real buyback was about $306M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 1.17×

Maintaining

Capex $307M ÷ depreciation $263M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $3.2B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.84×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $993M vs $1.4B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Near

Earnings +33% over the record · +17%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.43/share (latest year $0.02), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $20.41/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 19% → 3% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 19% early to 3% lately, median 17% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −3%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Owner earnings growth −1%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 1% a year over the record.
Worst year 2025 · −2.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
How management talks about it Promotional

What this means
The returns have faded, yet the filing reaches for a promoter’s vocabulary — world-class, best-in-class, disruptive — more than an owner’s. When the words sell harder than the results deliver, the gap is the thing to weigh.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Moreover, rapid advancement of generative AI Technologies may reduce the barrier to entry for new competitors.”

The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$1.7B

Cash & short-term investments$1.2B
Receivables$269M
Inventory$14M
Other current assets$207M

Current liabilities$777M

Accounts payable$39M
Other current liabilities$738M

Current ratio2.20×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio2.18×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio1.57×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$929Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+22.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters9.3× → 2.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.2Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($507M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1.1B$138M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$238Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $4.0B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$1.2B · 31%
Buybacks$500M · 13%
Retained (debt / cash)$2.2B · 56%

Returned to owners$500M
16% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $500M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $656M and cash and short-term investments rose $649M.
Average price paid for buybacks$70.42
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 7M shares were bought for $500M, about $70.42 each.
Net change in share count27.6%
The diluted count rose from 324M to 414M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
Return on what it retained1%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($1.7B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $14M, so each retained $1 added about 0.01 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$6.7B64% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity59%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$4.3Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $1.2B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Andrew C. Florance	$22.2M	$11.4M	$346M
2022	Andrew C. Florance	$19.4M	$16.2M	$444M
2023	Andrew C. Florance	$29.2M	$28.6M	$372M
2024	Andrew C. Florance	$37.4M	$8.2M	$246M
2025	Andrew C. Florance	$36.4M	$33.2M	$123M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership1.2%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio303:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$194M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 6% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why CoStar Group Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

4 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?9.3% vs 23.1%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 23.1% early in the record and 9.3% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?27.6%
Diluted shares grew 27.6% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $500M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$338M → $994M
Debt rose from $338M to $994M while owner earnings went from about $233M to $247M — about 1.5 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 4.0 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?6% → 8% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $49M to $269M while revenue grew 307%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (6% of revenue then, 8% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean

Did reported profit become cash?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Income taxes, Acquisitions as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Commercial Services & Supplies

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
FIFiserv Inc	$21.2B	87%	26.3%	8%	21%
GPNGlobal Payments Inc.	$7.7B	59%	16.0%	4%	25%
AKAMAkamai	$4.2B	64%	17.7%	9%	26%
ALLEAllegion	$4.1B	44%	19.4%	23%	15%
CSGPCoStar Group Inc.	$3.2B	79%	17.7%	9%	21%
FTAIFTAI Aviation Ltd.	$2.5B	55%	-8.2%	-1%	-12%
CTOSCustom Truck One Source Inc.	$1.9B	24%	7.0%	4%	11%
CTEVClaritev Corporation	$965M	—	9.9%	-1%	22%
Group median	—	59%	16.9%	6%	21%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what CoStar Group Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, CoStar Group Inc. earns about $682M on its 21.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.8% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($682M) Net of stock comp (−$206M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−17%/yr

Owner-earnings growth, delivered—

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $231M on 408M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-27; net cash $222M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh CSGP against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "CoStar Group Inc. (CSGP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CSGP, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CSCO its page in the Manual CSL →

Industry order: ← CPAY the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter CSV →