According to HousingWire, CoStar Group has brought in Felix Kusch as the new president of Homes.com. Kusch comes from Europe, where he's been running some of the biggest real estate portals over there. Most recently he was the CEO of Immoweb in Belgium and Immowelt in Germany, both top players in their markets. He'll be leading the Homes.com team and reporting directly to Andy Florance, who founded and runs CoStar Group.
What's interesting about this move is the timing. CoStar's residential business just hit profitability for the first time, which is a big milestone. In the second quarter of this year, the residential segment generated twelve million dollars in adjusted EBITDA, and Homes.com specifically saw its revenue jump up significantly, reaching twenty-eight and a half million dollars year over year. A lot of that growth came from the launch of their AI tool earlier in the year.
Both Kusch and Florance seem to be on the same page about what matters in this business. They're talking about winning by putting properties and agents first, rather than treating agent leads like a commodity to be sold around. Florance specifically mentioned in his announcement that Kusch's track record of beating tough competitors in Europe using that same philosophy is exactly what they need. Kusch echoed that sentiment, saying he's spent his career earning trust by promoting the property itself, and now he gets to do that in the largest residential market in the world.
What I'm seeing locally here in the Bay Area is that portals like Homes.com are becoming increasingly important in how buyers and sellers interact with the market. When a national platform gets serious about profitability and brings in experienced international leadership, it usually signals they're going after market share more aggressively. That kind of competition can shake things up for us as local professionals, so I'm keeping a close eye on where they're headed.
