Activities related to real estate
This industry group comprises establishments primarily engaged in activities related to real estate, such as real estate property management, real estate appraising and real estate listing. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A
- Establishments · CanadaA
- 8,606
- Under 10 employeesA
- 82%
- Establishments · USA
- 110,949
- Employment · USA
- 784,197
- Payroll · USA
- $54.2B
Size and shape
How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.
Canadian establishments by number of employeesA
Of 8,606 Canadian establishments with employees, 82% have fewer than ten — an industry of very small operators.
Where they areA
Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.
Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.
How businesses here compete
The structural profile of subsector 531, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.
Owning is a capital business. Managing and brokering are service businesses with low capital — and low barriers, which is why they are crowded.
- Who sets the price
- Local rents, cap rates and interest rates.
- The software it runs on
- Property management and accounting, transaction management, listing platforms.
Market screens and studies
Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.
Software serving this industry
The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.
The appraisal form is a lender requirement and the delivery rails are owned by the government-sponsored enterprises and their vendor panel, so the software is a compliance conduit rather than a product choice — and the mortgage-origination record at 5222 already showed who controls that pipe. Automated valuation is meanwhile removing the appraisal itself from a growing share of transactions. Sourced update 2026-09-18: the property-data layer underneath has a price. CoreLogic was taken private by Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners at $80 a share, about $6.0B of equity value, closing 4 June 2021 [B], after rejecting a $6.7B approach from CoStar. It rebranded to Cotality in March 2025 [B]. Nobody has paid anything remotely like that for appraisal workflow software, which is the record's point: the value sits in the data asset, not in the form-filling tool.
Mature, well-capitalised, and defended by payments attach on rent collection. The interesting residual is the small-portfolio landlord, which is a low-ACV volume business with high churn.
This is the one property-tech category where the incumbent publishes its numbers, and the numbers close the door. CoStar Group's 10-K for 2025 reports $3,247M of revenue, of which the CoStar subscription product alone was $1,259M and LoopNet listings $312M, with Commercial Real Estate as a whole at $1,787M [A]. Company-wide subscription contract renewal ran at about 89% in each of 2025 and 2024 [A]. That is a data asset researched building by building for decades, sold to every broker, lender, owner and appraiser who needs comps, and defended in court as well as in sales. How it differs from the appraisal record (5313): appraisal software is a compliance conduit — the lender form and the GSE delivery rails decide the product, and the 5313 record found the money sits in the property data underneath (CoreLogic, ~$6.0B). Commercial real estate data is that data layer, and here it is owned by one public company rather than by the government-sponsored enterprises. There is no form to file; the buyer pays for the comps, the tenant roll and the ownership record, and the one who holds the most verified records wins. The challengers prove the ceiling rather than the opening. Reonomy raised about $128M and was sold to Altus Group (Toronto, TSX: AIF) for $201.5M in November 2021 [B] — barely 1.6x the capital it consumed — and Altus's fiscal 2025 release lists it as a product without any separate figure. CompStak (lease comps traded give-to-get) has raised $78M in total, last a $50M Series C led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital in November 2021 [B]. Crexi, the listings marketplace, had raised $41M by its January 2020 Series B led by Mitsubishi Estate [B]. Cherre (data integration for owners) raised a $30M Series C led by HighSage Ventures in September 2024 [B]. The best-funded neighbour is Placer.ai (foot traffic), at least $175M across its $100M Series C (January 2022) and a $75M round (August 2024) at a valuation of nearly $1.5B, with a $100M revenue run-rate claimed for February 2024 [B; run-rate C] — but it sells location analytics to retailers and owners, not comps, and it grew by not competing with CoStar on CoStar's asset. Altus's ARGUS (valuation and cash-flow modelling) is the other entrenched standard: Altus reports Software ARR of C$197.9M at year-end 2025, up 10.6% [A]. Incumbent vulnerability decides it: the data asset compounds, the renewal rate is near 90%, and every venture-funded attempt to rebuild the comp set has exited small or stayed niche.
And what every business buys · 25 generic categories
Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.
Companies in this industry · 37
Every company this research names that is filed here or beneath — the operators, and the vendors that sell to them — largest disclosed revenue first. The rank is within the company’s own six-digit industry.
| Company | Filed under | Revenue | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppFolioNASDAQ:APPF | Real estate property managers531310 | $951M | 1/20 |
| Yardi SystemsPrivate | Real estate property managers531310 | — | 2/20 |
| BaselanePrivate | Real estate property managers531310 | — | 3/20 |
| Community BossPrivate | Real estate property managers531310 | — | 4/20 |
| ParkadePrivate | Real estate property managers531310 | — | 5/20 |
| VTSPrivate | Real estate property managers531310 | — | 6/20 |
| ACIPrivate | Activities related to real estate5313 | — | 1/8 |
| Altus GroupPrivate | Other activities related to real estate531390 | — | 1/9 |
| AnowPrivate | Activities related to real estate5313 | — | 2/8 |
| Apartments.comPrivate | Other activities related to real estate531390 | — | 2/9 |
| AssociaPrivate | Real estate property managers531310 | — | 7/20 |
| Bradford TechnologiesPrivate | Activities related to real estate5313 | — | 3/8 |
| CherrePrivate | Other activities related to real estate531390 | — | 3/9 |
| Clear CapitalPrivate | Activities related to real estate5313 | — | 4/8 |
| CompStakPrivate | Other activities related to real estate531390 | — | 4/9 |
And 22 more on the companies page.
Who works here
The occupations employed in Real estate and rental and leasing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.
Tagged to this industry
Concentrated in this sectorA
These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.
And the jobs every business has
Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 82% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.
Inside this industry
3 rows sit directly beneath 5313, and 6 in all once every level is counted. Each has a base report of its own.
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 53131 | Real estate property managers | 6,494 | Property Management ServicesProperty Management Software |
| 53132 | Offices of real estate appraisers | 817 | screened at 5313 |
| 53139 | Other activities related to real estate | 1,295 | Commercial Real Estate Data & Analytics |
Alongside it, under 531 Real estate
| Code | Industry | Establishments · CA | What is known |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5311 | Lessors of real estate | 30,224 | Affordable & Social Housing DevelopmentSelf-Storage Development & AcquisitionSelf-Storage Management Software |
| 5312 | Offices of real estate agents and brokers | 14,307 | Real Estate Transaction Management Software |