research associate

customer consultant

research consultant

researcher

market manager

CoStar Group

They offer an attractive salary to attract and keep you, but you’re doing cold calling to realtors and brokers who either will avoid your calls, have real estate firms tell you that they view the data being asked for as proprietary information and refuse to share, or be outright hostile to you.  Burnout is high (92% attrition rate at one point), metrics are nearly unattainable without having to resort to some actions that will inevitably skew the data (leaving voice mail messages that are longer than 1 min 30 sec if you’ve been trying to reach a broker/rep multiple times and not obtaining any information - which for some reason counts positively towards your metrics).  How successful you are at your job is metrics driven and determines your success - very little flexibility.  

There’s a strong distrust from realtors and people who have recently bought or sold properties as they don’t want their client information shared publicly and feel like their privacy has been invaded when you obtain the deed without their knowledge and cold call the parties involved out of the blue asking to confirm the amounts they paid for the property (can you blame them?).  

Projects are unloaded on you with little warning and not much preparation - you can come in and find a task like cleaning up a company hierarchy, write a news story, have a bunch of errors to clear up that build up quickly that need super specific fixes that can get rejected back to you with little explanation or training.  All of these are given extremely tight and somewhat unrealistic deadlines.  

Management can try to be helpful, but only up to a point.  One on one interviews would be helpful if you had more time and meetings cut into your workload a bit too much.  It’s really difficult to engage with them and explain what’s not working when you’re dominated by looming deadlines and are only given an hour to work on a project - so not much changes.  Trying to engage and meet with management usually means you’re going to miss the deadline or the project is going to be late (affecting your metrics).  Lots of work being delegated to others on your team because the workload is too much for an individual employee.  You never feel like you have enough time in the day to complete your work.  

This is pretty much an old school telemarketing job - high rates of rejection, low levels of success.  The job I was being trained for was very different from the job I was doing.  They need more headcount to spread out the workload and narrow the scope of the responsibilities of the role.  


This company has too many unrealistic expectations and therefore unnecessary stress put on employees. We are expected to work like robots and have no opinions or feelings. They pay well but no number is worth selling your soul for. You feel like the life is draining out of you more and more with each passing month. I do not think there is a single sane person here that would not want to leave. Fellow associates are great to work with, that is the only other pro besides the money. It is a high-paying call center and the metrics are the only thing management cares about and often people have felt forced to have to cheat to be able to even come close to the unrealistic expectations. I do not want to feel like I am constantly competing with my colleagues and just looking at numbers all the time! It is exhausting and frankly just unhealthy. To sum it up, it is a very toxic work environment that I would not recommend to anyone.

Not a great place for people with any talent for work, but for playing games and enjoying office politics.   Very high turnover.  Being forced to work in an unsafe manner is typical, although they appear to be on top of it, no real safe filed practices are implemented. The practicality and unfamiliarity of life in Canada makes them a poor choice for a long-term employer.

They have a great outside image, inside it's another story. Sad, as they could be so much more.

Learned a lot about mapping, and Geolocaiton software and the commercial world of Real Estate.

Met some amazing co-workers from all across Canada.  Best part of the job actually.

I started at the company in an entry-level position and with a lot of hard work, was able to progress into a leadership role. The company typically gives back what you put into it. 
I was offered a lot of opportunities because I worked hard for and asked for them, but also they became available - a lot of it is about timing.
The entry-level positions can be a grind, but you will gain valuable experience that you can take with you to other positions in your career. Use every day as an opportunity to learn!
My advice for anyone at CoStar is to be transparent with your manager to ensure they know your career goals and what resources you need to be successful. They want to help you succeed as much as you, but they're not mind-readers!

Micromanagement and auditing your work is how managers spend their time, they don’t actually help or support, just constantly increase your workload and the expectations placed on you, and then in turn increase the metrics so they never have to promote you. Everyone is miserable in the research department and searching for other jobs. Turnover is extremely high. They put effort into training you but if you don’t learn everything within your fast paced training period you are fired. It’s very call heavy, your calls are all monitored and listened to and if you don’t follow the robotic script you will be threatened to be fired. Management is a joke. Stay away from this toxic environment.

The company's product is good and the company has a steadily growing presence in Canada so it was a huge opportunity to be immersed in many if not all facets of real estate through the daily interaction with real estate professionals. Great entry level pay, metrics-centric job for those looking to break into real estate/marketing and analytics rolls.  However, little opportunity for advancement and the top down never knows how to properly inform companywide changes in processes or metrics. Management is poor and inexperienced and obsessed with office politics and were constantly unprofessional.

The pay seems great at first. Then you quickly realize the unattainable numbers they force on you.  You have zero work-life balance and are JUST a number.  They will always want more until you are burnt out and then they will fire you without any sympathy and give you the bare minimum package no matter how long you have been an employee.   Unless you are completely desperate for a job - run the other way.

The pay is unbeatable, especially considering the fact that there is great work-life balance. You come in at 8:30 & leave at 5 - never have to work over time. Entry level pay itself is from CAD $50,000-$65,000. There's alot of micromanagement though. Management only cares about high productivity & high productivity only. They never put themselves in your shoes & just expect you to be working like you're a machine.

Toxic, micromanaging hellscape. 

Required to sit in a confined space/car for minimum of 8hrs a day (time spent commuting does not count nor is paid beyond 30 mins)

0.5% annual raises. 
And fired without cause. Due to the location of where I lived. As they wanted someone more local. 

- salary keeps smart people around
- management will give you a headache as you are smarter than them
- lots of young people so you make friends
- repetitive job, have to talk to people who hate you
- no room to be creative or innovative

Don't come here if you have an entrepreneurial mindset.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Research associate 5 salaries reported	$62,700 per year
Customer consultant 4 salaries reported	$60,150 per year
Research consultant 6 salaries reported	$74,000 per year
Researcher 4 salaries reported	$55,625 per year
Market manager 3 salaries reported	$108,917 per year

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