Zillow Removes Climate Risk Scores From Home Listings

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/climate/zillow-climate-risk-scores-homes.html

by Adventurous-Coat-333

7 comments

  1. Buy a house you cannot insure! Where do I sign up?

  3. This seems to be affecting California only. My condo apt in a senior community has not dropped its risk score:

    >”Flood zone In FEMA Zone X (unshaded), a minimal-risk flood area”.

    My apt is on high ground, and according to a picture taken right after Hurricane Helene passed through, was high and dry.

    Now contrast that with this:

    >”Flood zone In FEMA Zone X (unshaded), a minimal-risk flood area”.

    Same description, yet this apartment showed water flooding the street, the parking lot, and water from a nearby retention lake coming within 6 feet of the back door. Since Helene really missed the area but dumped a lot of rain, were a hurricane to park itself nearer, this apartment *will* get flooded.

    Explanation: The *entire* community was rated as a whole, and it’s a big piece of land! Zillow then used the same description for every condo in the community, regardless of elevation, previous flooding, or nearness to a water source capable of flooding.

    They didn’t do their homework.

    In my search for a new abode I Googled for news stories about flooding of the community, and found the areal photography of the community after the last big Hurricane. I then found stories about flood mitigation, and homes that have not yet received help for flooding issues.

  4. Expect more concealment as we go further into the emerging climate crisis. Let the buyer beware, “Caveat emptor.” It makes a proper managed retreat from dangerous areas less likely. Ugh.

    A side but related issue: If you think about it, the very existence of pooled-risk, i.e. “insurance,” contributes mightily to fuzzy-headed poor siting decisions.

    Both by individuals buyer lost in their own mental rosy glow about to buy a Sierra foothills property because it is rightly cheap.

    But as well, it gives developers with weak ethics a path to take-the-money-and-run.

  6. Some business will probably pop up that will tell you any homes risk. Like Carfax.

  7. Looks like they off-loaded it to a third party, “First Street”, who charges you to see details.

    For one property, Zillow’s listing has a section that says this:

    >Climate risks

    >Explore flood, wildfire, and other predictive climate risk information for this property on First Street®️.

    >Flood zone

    >In FEMA Zone X (unshaded), a minimal-risk flood area

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