Realla is a free-to-list search engine for commercial property and displays an index of available commercial real estate in the UK.

Over the past five years CoStar has invested billions of dollars into building its online property marketplaces, generating millions of leads resulting in millions of commercial property transactions.

CoStar said this was a strategic acquisition as Realla had developed a wealth of expertise in capturing listings data in other European markets, which would support its pan-European growth strategy.

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Andrew C Florance, founder and CEO at CoStar Group, said: “Across the world, marketing commercial properties [are] moving to digital marketplaces, away from wood-based products like magazines, flyers and boards.

“Realla is the UK's most comprehensive commercial property digital marketplace – and when combined with the CoStar information solution, it is expected to offer the best of tools for marketing properties, valuations and facilitating transactions.”

Andrew Miles, CEO at Realla, added: "We are excited to become part of the CoStar Group.

“We believe this will enable Realla to accelerate its growth, supported by the terrific resources of CoStar.

“We believe we can build the single most effective marketing solution for the UK property industry.

“The commercial property sector deserves a high-quality, sector-specific online marketplace to better serve agents and owners.”