Pros
Free fruit & snacks (the bananas are always ripe) Dri-fit shirts for volunteering Consistent work schedule The people you work with make this job bearable and are alot of fun Metro paid for if you need to commute Health Insurance and benefits You get to speak to commercial real estate professionals which can be entertaining if you make it so Gains you "commercial real estate experience"
Cons
The job itself is not a glamorous one and can be extremely repetitive. You are ranked as a researcher in a heavy metric ranked environment where some flounder while others step up and do really well. However, they have just changed this policy to .... well they don't know yet, so while they are in flux figuring out how to rank the effectiveness of their employers, they are now unable to figure out who is a competent employee anymore. Everyday is about hitting some numerical goal, which is very dangerous as it will always result in misleading data or information because nobody really cares if it is right or not but just if you hit that number. Congratulations! If you hit or exceed the numerical objective for awhile, then you will either get noticed as a steller employee who is great at their job, or questioned for manipulating/making up data. It's a very fine line and otherwise excellent employees have been fired because of it. Additionally, hitting the objectives doesn't make sense as everyone is assigned to a different market and portfolio with their advantages/disadvantages, so the numerical objectives is not an efficient way to maximize the productivity of their employees. Some of the best performers come from the best performing portfolios which has no correlation as to if they do their job well. Somebody with a strong real estate background might want to reconsider taking this position as it will make you question how things are done within CoStar and make you more frustrated coming into work each day. Additionally, the "bonus potential" carrot is hung above your head in trying to meet all their conflicting objectives, and they will find ANY possible way to not give you your well deserved money. It's very difficult to get and I would equate it to being as difficult as firing a flaming arrow, while riding a bucking bronco no less, through a small gelatin target 100 meters away.