Zillow has removed climate risk scores from more than 1 million listings after real estate agents complained the feature was scaring off buyers, replacing in-line grades with a small link that sends users to the underlying data provider.
The about-face comes more than a year after the company added property-level climate insights, citing internal research that more than 80 percent of buyers weigh climate risks when making home decisions.
Why the climate risk scores vanished from listings
The move came in response to concerns raised by the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, the nation’s largest MLS, which said prominently featuring a home’s risk of flooding or burning down could reduce demand. Art Carter, its chief executive, said his company does not yet publish the risk of flooding over the next five years because it might fundamentally change how buyers view a property, and he wondered whether model outputs mirror ground realities in places that have experienced no flooding for decades.
In return, Zillow stripped from listing pages the badges and summaries that had been displayed there, replacing them with a lower-profile link to First Street Foundation, the nonprofit climate risk analytics group that provides the data. The adjustment adds more friction for consumers, whose onus it is now to click away from the listing in order to see risk details.
The accuracy debate over property-level climate models
First Street Foundation stands behind its models as transparent and peer-reviewed, and says they are continuously validated against observed damage. “The Los Angeles fire zone was something that we made maps for, and over 90 percent of the homes that actually burned were extreme or severe by our maps — it was 100 percent at some risk,” said First Street chief executive Matthew Eby, citing one example of its direct comparisons between its hazard map data and Cal Fire’s.
Academic research and other independent work have identified holes in government maps. A Louisiana State University study discovered that almost two times more properties are at risk of a 1 percent annual chance flood than are identified on Federal Emergency Management Agency maps, which dictate much insurance coverage. Meanwhile, according to NOAA, there were a record 28 billion-dollar U.S. weather and climate disasters in 2023, underscoring that risk baselines have been changing more rapidly than public maps are being refreshed.
Investors have bet on the demand for granular risk tools: First Street has raised over $50 million, with supporters including General Catalyst, Congruent Ventures and Galvanize Climate Solutions, according to PitchBook. Its listings originally appeared on Realtor.com in 2020 and currently are still listed there, on Redfin and Homes.com, reflecting an inconsistent disclosure terrain among leading gateways.
Transparency versus transactions in real estate portals
The standoff crystallizes a larger tension in housing: that buyers as ever are demanding hard numbers on physical risk, while agents dread that those numbers can derail deals even when the hazard is insurable or mitigable. The most controversial features are time-bound probabilities — for instance, about the chance a home will flood in one or five years — that feel more tangible than declarations regarding “high” or “moderate” risk.
State disclosure laws are also not uniform. Some require sellers to divulge flood histories or fire hardening details, while others are vaguer. Within that patchwork, the oversized portals have been playing a de facto disclosure role: A lower risk score takes it out of the information banks that institutional buyers, insurers and municipal planners are already picking over.
What this change means for buyers, sellers, and markets
Insurers have adjusted coverage in riskier areas, from patches of California to the Gulf Coast, either raising premiums or restricting new policies. Property-level climate analytics, used to price risk and plan infrastructure, are being increasingly relied on by mortgage investors and city planners. With its move away from in-page risk labels, Zillow may be unintentionally expanding the information gap between professionals equipped with greater tools and the everyday homebuyers making their largest financial decision.
For sellers and agents, the retreat eliminates an item that might have killed a deal on the listing page. For buyers, it adds work. The data is there to be found — it’s just not front and center. That change might subtly affect behavior, especially for shoppers who rapidly browse and may not click out to confirm wildfire, flood, heat or wind exposure.
What to watch next as portals weigh climate disclosures
Anticipate further pressure on how and where risk appears. If portals disagree on whether to display property-level scores, policymakers and industry groups could hear calls to standardize disclosures as they were for energy costs or lead paint. In the meantime, buyers can do a double take: They can look at First Street’s risk engine and compare that with their own local flood and fire maps, insurer quotes, city defensible-space plan or drainage plans.
Zillow’s decision cuts to the central question in digital real estate: Is a listing platform a marketing channel or a source of transparency? As climate risk more and more affects insurability, premiums and resale values, that line is becoming harder to ignore.