CoStar: What It Is and How It Shapes Commercial Real Estate Decisions

When you're buying, selling, or renting CoStar, a leading commercial real estate data platform that provides detailed property records, lease trends, and market analytics. It's not just a website—it's the backbone many professionals rely on to understand what’s really happening in the market. If you’ve ever wondered why a warehouse in Dallas is priced at $85 per square foot while one in Atlanta is $52, CoStar is likely the source behind that number. It tracks everything from tenant move-outs to new construction starts, giving users a real-time pulse on supply and demand.

CoStar doesn’t just show prices—it connects dots. For example, if you’re trying to commercial real estate, the buying, selling, or leasing of office buildings, retail spaces, warehouses, and other income-generating properties, CoStar tells you who owns what, how long they’ve held it, and what kind of rent they’re collecting. That’s critical when you’re comparing properties or negotiating a deal. It also helps property valuation, the process of estimating a commercial property’s worth based on income, location, and market conditions by pulling in actual lease data, not just guesswork. Unlike Zillow for homes, CoStar focuses only on commercial spaces, which means the data is deeper, more specialized, and often more accurate for business use.

Many real estate agents and investors use CoStar to spot trends before they hit the headlines. Want to know which cities are seeing the biggest jump in industrial space demand? CoStar shows it. Curious why a retail center in Phoenix suddenly dropped its vacancy rate? The platform tracks tenant turnover and new leases. Even if you’re not directly using CoStar, chances are the agent you’re working with is—and that affects your offer, your lease terms, or your investment strategy. It’s the reason some deals close fast while others stall: one side has the data, the other doesn’t.

Below, you’ll find real-world guides on how to price commercial property, how to market it effectively, and how to understand the numbers that actually matter. Whether you’re looking at the 2% rule for cash flow, learning how to build value in a building, or trying to figure out if a 1H apartment is right for you, these posts connect directly to the kind of data CoStar helps professionals access. No fluff. Just what works in today’s market.