When CoStar Group purchased Visual Lease in October, it capped a year of diversification and consolidation in the lease management space. 

LeaseQuery rebranded as FinQuery, greatly expanding its scope to contract management. And LeaseAccelerator was gobbled up by insightsoftware, a large provider of CFO solutions.  

It’s not often a brand nearly doubles overnight but that’s what happened by combining Visual Lease with CoStar Real Estate Manager.  

Here’s what the combined lease administration and lease accounting platform will offer customers: 

Industry-leading market analytics 

The CoStar Data & Analytics platform already has the largest commercial property inventory in addition to unmatched market insights. That’s on top of CoStar commercial real estate news.  

The platform will offer Visual Lease customers the same benefits CoStar customers have enjoyed for years: Stronger negotiating positions and better relationships with brokers. Ultimately, having market intelligence this powerful places customers steps ahead of competition.   

“With CoStar data, Visual Lease customers will drive better deal outcomes and be the first to the best commercial real estate deals,” said Mark McDonald, CoStar Real Estate Manager President.

“With CoStar data, Visual Lease customers will drive better deal outcomes and be the first to the best commercial real estate deals.”

Mark McDonald

CoStar Real Estate Manager President

Enhanced ESG capabilities

Visual Lease has a leg up in the market when it comes to sustainability reporting. As ESG requirements ramp up in Europe with CSRD and California with SB 253 and SB 261, the commercial real estate industry is getting ready now.  

The product, ESG Steward, offers: 
 

• Carbon accounting for scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions
• Sustainability management for energy, water, waste, and climate impact
• Managed emissions factors 
• Regulatory grade reporting 

ESG Steward adds to the CoStar Real Estate Manager sustainability data vault solution.  

Introducing GASB 

As for GASB, Visual Lease simplifies compliance for government customers, a new capability for CoStar Real Estate Manager.  

“The public sector is a massive market,” said Robert Michlewicz, Visual Lease President. “With CoStar, we are even better positioned to extend services to this market.” 

Workiva and Workday partnerships

Visual Lease’s partnerships with financial reporting platform Workiva and HR/finance platform Workday are key differentiators.  

The partnership has Visual Lease integrated into both platforms’ marketplaces.  

“These are key tools of the CFO’s office,” McDonald says. “This allows us to build once and leverage many times.” 

Access to new markets 

While CoStar Real Estate Manager has a strong footprint in the enterprise market — serving, for example, six of the top 10 U.S. banks — Visual Lease has dominance in the mid-market.  

That means enterprise-class functionality for Visual Lease customers and smaller-market access for the CoStar Real Estate Manager platform.  

As a result, Visual Lease has lighter configurations and more self-implementation options.  

“Collectively, the two companies are stronger than one, which allows us to have more financial strength to invest more in the long term,” McDonald says. “This acquisition strengthens us both.”  

“The ability to work seamlessly with CoStar data made perfect sense and aligns with our commitment to extend value to our customers.” 

Robert Michlewicz

Visual Lease President

The right DNA 

Why did Visual Lease choose CoStar Group? 

Michlewicz says both companies are aligned on values. Then, there’s the data angle.  

“Combining VL’s database with what CoStar market leading analytics is great for customers,” Michlewicz says. “The ability to work seamlessly with CoStar data made perfect sense and aligns with our commitment to extend value to our customers.” 

In addition to both platforms offering the same core services — lease accounting and lease administration — they also launched at the same time, in the late 1990s. In negotiations, McDonald says there were few if any communication barriers.  

“We speak the same language,” McDonald says. “We’re communicating the same value. We both saw the need to digitize real estate a long time ago. There’s also a lot of parallels with how we go to market. We have name recognition where they don’t and they have relationships with service providers that we don’t.”