CoStar Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSGP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jeffrey Meuler: Yes. Thank you. I know you don’t have like formal subsegments or product level margins. But the 39% flattish margins for nonresi, I just want to confirm that, that includes the investment in sales force as well as Apartments.com and LoopNet marketing and other initiatives. And then, so that’s just the first part. And then second, can you help us with the Q1 margin guidance? Is that the Apartments.com marketing? Or are you starting to market Homes.com significantly more aggressively this early in the year as well?

Scott Wheeler: Yes. So Jeff, to the first part of your question, the margins I referenced on the commercial information marketplace businesses. Yes, includes CoStar, LoopNet Apartments.com, all of the investments that we make in those platforms. So it’s everything outside of the residential marketplace. And then I think more notably in the first quarter of the year is the hiring that we did in the second half of the year, last year, along with the increases we give for wages in the first quarter, which we do want to keep our employee base ahead of inflation. It’s more of those impacts that roll into the first quarter as opposed to any acceleration of marketing spend across the company in general. So that’s what we’re seeing — and then we — like I mentioned before, we won’t be hiring as many of those sales forces this year or other resources that will moderate that increase, flatten it out as we go through the year.

Jeffrey Meuler: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you for your question. Your next question comes from the line of John Campbell with Stephens. Your line is now open.

John Campbell: Hi, guys. Good afternoon. Thank for squeezing in my question. Just sticking on the M&A conversation. Andy, when you talk about the build versus buy, is it safe to assume that you’re now, I guess, fully committed to building the traffic based on an organic basis versus acquiring it? Or should we not necessarily roll that out with it maybe just coming down to whether you can get the right price for the right asset?

Andrew Florance: I don’t think you can rule anything out like it’s a flexible thing. And I think you described it accurately. I think we are fortunate to have a very viable organic path. And again, there are — there are many, I would say, going into this year or going into the fall, it felt almost sometimes if there were too many M&A opportunities out there. So there are a number of things. But as you know, we’re not at liberty to discuss these kinds of things typically in detail.

John Campbell: Understood. Thanks, Andy.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is from the line of Ashish Sabadra with RBC. Your line is now open.

Ashish Sabadra: Thanks for taking my question. I just had a broader question about the guidance and the conservatism that’s baked in. Last year, we saw a pretty like expectation for a pretty upfront resi investment, and we saw numbers being beaten and raised as we went through the quarters. Is that something similar this year as well where we have taken some conservatism around these growth investments? Thanks.