CoStar Group, Inc. said Friday it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Zonda, a leading provider of new home construction data, homebuilder software and residential real estate marketplaces, for US$800 million in cash.

Separately, seller MidOcean Partners also announced the deal.

If it closes as expected, the proposed acquisition will have a widespread impact on Canadian commercial real estate in that both U.S.-based firms have subsidiaries that operate extensively in Canada.

Both firms operate offices located across the country. In Canada, Zonda uses the Zonda Urban label.

Zonda serves more than 3,000 customers across the homebuilding ecosystem, including many of the largest residential builders, developers, suppliers and lenders in North America. At its core is a proprietary, lot-level database covering new home communities, land development activity, construction status, home sales and builder operations. Zonda also operates NewHomeSource and Livabl, two leading online new home marketplaces in the U.S. and Canada.

CoStar founder and CEO Andy Florance said, “Zonda has built an extraordinary business with deep relationships across the homebuilding industry and one of the most valuable proprietary datasets in new home real estate, This acquisition extends CoStar Group’s leadership into a major new segment of the real estate industry and strengthens our ability to provide clients with comprehensive information solutions across every major real estate segment. We believe the combination will deliver deeper insights, workflow efficiencies, and analytics to the homebuilding industry, while strengthening our core information offerings and significantly expanding our new home marketplace capabilities.”

At MidOcean, managing director Sara Badham commented on the value-creation strategy the company implemented during its ownership of Zonda. “With Zonda’s visionary management team, we set out to create the preeminent platform for data, insights and technology across the residential housing ecosystem,” she said. “We continually invested behind that vision, in strategic acquisitions, technology, product and talent. Zonda is a trusted partner to its customers and a trusted source of intelligence across the market. We are incredibly proud of what we have built together with the Zonda team and we look forward to watching the Company’s continued success as part of CoStar Group.”

BofA Securities is serving as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP is serving as legal advisor to CoStar Group. For MidOcean, Houlihan Lokey Capital, Inc. served as lead financial advisor and Solomon Partners Securities, LLC. also served as a financial advisor. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP served as legal advisor to MidOcean

With files from Paul Bubny, Connectcre.com

Pictured: CoStar Founder and CEO Andy Florance

Photo: Courtesy of CoStar