On Friday, CoStar Group wired $800 million in cash to MidOcean Partners for Bora and its subsidiary Zonda, a homebuilding data and marketplace platform. The deal closed without stock, without earnouts, without financing conditions. BofA Securities, Houlihan Lokey, and Solomon Partners advised.
MidOcean acquired Zonda in 2019 and executed nine add-on acquisitions to expand North American coverage. The firm claims Zonda more than doubled in scale under its ownership and posted 50 consecutive quarters of annual recurring revenue growth. MidOcean managing director Sara Badham called Zonda a trusted partner and source of intelligence.
Zonda brings roughly 3,000 customers—builders, developers, lenders—and a subscription-based data platform anchored by a lot-level database of development activity. Its product suite includes virtual home tour software and two new construction discovery platforms: NewHomeSource in the U.S. and Livabl in Canada. The revenue model is recurring, per CoStar.
This acquisition is the latest in CoStar's methodical march into residential real estate data. The company bought Homesnap in 2020, Homes.com in 2021, and Matterport in 2024. Each deal extended CoStar's reach beyond its commercial real estate core. Zonda adds the homebuilding segment—the supply side of residential—to a portfolio that already covers listings, valuations, and visualization.
CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance framed the deal as an extension of leadership into a major new segment. The statement is characteristically precise: Zonda's proprietary dataset is one of the most valuable in new home real estate. CoStar now owns the data infrastructure for both commercial and residential property markets, from lot-level development through final sale.
The cash consideration is notable. CoStar held $4.8 billion in cash and marketable securities as of March 31, 2026, per its most recent 10-Q. An $800 million cash outlay represents roughly 17% of that liquidity. The company is not levering up, not issuing equity, not diluting shareholders. It is deploying its balance sheet to acquire a data monopoly in a fragmented market.
MidOcean's exit timing is equally instructive. The private equity firm acquired Zonda in 2019, before the pandemic-driven housing boom and before the rate shock that followed. It grew the platform through add-ons, expanded recurring revenue, and sold at a moment when data assets command premium multiples. The 50 consecutive quarters of ARR growth suggest a business that compounded through cycles.
For CoStar, the strategic logic is straightforward. The company's commercial data business faces maturation in core segments. Residential expansion provides a growth vector. Zonda's lot-level database is a moat: no competitor has the same granularity of development activity data across North America. The combination of Homes.com listings, Matterport 3D tours, and Zonda supply-side data creates a closed-loop information system.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026. Integration risk is real. CoStar has a strong track record with acquisitions—Homesnap and Homes.com were absorbed without major disruption—but Zonda's customer base is distinct from the commercial brokerage and appraisal clients CoStar traditionally serves. Builders and developers operate on different data rhythms than office and industrial brokers.
What this signals for the broader market is a consolidation of real estate information into fewer hands. CoStar now controls commercial listings, residential listings, homebuilding data, and property visualization. The company is building a vertically integrated data utility. Competitors—from Zillow to local MLS systems to niche construction data providers—face a counterparty that owns the infrastructure their products depend on.
Florance's closing line in the announcement was not boilerplate. He said the acquisition strengthens CoStar's ability to provide comprehensive information solutions across every major real estate segment. Every major segment. That is the thesis. CoStar is not buying a data company. It is buying the last independent piece of a puzzle it has been assembling for six years.