Toxic Culture, Toxic Leader - Anonymous employee CoStar Group Employee Review

1.0
29 July 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This is an avenue to get into Commercial Real Estate, albeit a circuitous one Free fruit The benefits are great Many nice, well-meaning people

Cons

The way that people are treated and managed at CoStar is notoriously dehumanizing. My manager once told me: "Make sure you have someone to blame" My team often worked directly with the CEO, Andrew Florence. Andy is an irascible, mercurial, vindictive leader that believes in humiliating, intimidating, and debasing his colleagues in front of others. Despite his stature, Andy terrifies the executive leadership on down. People are even afraid to openly acknowledge Andy's behavior and only reference him to others with cryptic whispers. Andy blames all of the company's shortcomings on the people around him, which is ironic because he doesn't allow virtually any decisions to be made without his approval. Andy is the King Joffrey of CEOs. If you've ever had to use a CoStar product, you know Andy doesn't know how to run a technology company. The technology stack is a massive dinosaur of obsolete bandaids-on-bandaids. I am sure that many of the higher-ups are actually talented but their single most important skill is surviving at CoStar. Almost all of the leadership has worked at CoStar their entire careers so they have never had exposure to real leadership. Andy was worst rated CEO in DC on Glassdoor in 2013 and he had a meltdown. After that came out, you can see that there was some pressure to improve the reviews of CoStar/Andy. This also seems to be the time when they started publicizing the employee health initiative, which rewards people's Fitbit achievements. Keep looking. You're better than this.

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5.0
22 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Development, work life balance, competitive environment, career growth opportunities

Cons

A lot of priorities to juggle

1
2.0
23 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Here's the deal with working here if you're starting as an Associate Research Consultant. You will do 5 weeks of training 2 weeks in the classroom in which you will undergo two tests that you must pass to continue being employed. Then you will go to the "nest" for three weeks in which you're performance also determines if you will stay. Then you will go to your team where your performance also determines whether or not you'll stay. Everybody knows this is a metric based company and the truth is you can promote quickly if you're numbers are very good. The problem is that a combination of your market/team/managers/portfolio given once you reach the nest all determine how good your score can be. Also a lot of the metrics are pure luck. One of the metrics "CUF" basically means in your portfolio of brokers how many can you talk to on the phone for at least 90 seconds per month and this metric is worth 20% of your score which is odd considering it's luck if these old stuck up brokers pick up the phone or not. If you're smart you will find ways to "game" the system/metrics and rig your score to be higher. A lot of the tactics are hard to learn at first but with time if you're smart you can sneakily rig your score to be higher by frauding the system in certain ways. I was able to learn certain tactics even years ago in the nest that still work although some methods are only applicable depending on the market you are assigned to. If you're smart and sneaky and diligent you can find ways to cheat and make your life easier which I encourage everybody to do. This company is worthless and they do not stand by there employees at all. Only work here for money and benefits.

Cons

The pay and benefits is the only reason people stay at this job. Otherwise it is hell. Constantly being micromanaged and encouraged to do more regarding metrics that continue to become even less obtainable unless you cheat the system in some way which again I encourage although it is difficult and I think most people are not competent/diligent enough to do this consistently without eventually getting caught. The company now doesn't even want to build/accommodate enough parking spaces for employees. Overall it just gets worse and worse.

2
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