In a significant move for the US property market, the giant real estate listing site Zillow has removed a feature that displayed climate risk data for individual homes. The decision follows sustained complaints from estate agents and some homeowners who argued the scores were arbitrary and damaging to sales.
Data Deletion Amid Market Pressure
Zillow introduced the climate risk tool in September 2023, providing ratings for wildfire, flood, extreme heat, wind, and poor air quality for around one million properties. The company stated at the time that climate risks are now a critical factor in home-buying decisions for many Americans.
However, the feature has now been deleted. The removal came after objections from industry figures, including the influential California Regional Multiple Listing Service, which supplies property data to Zillow. Critics claimed the rankings seemed arbitrary, could not be appealed, and were ultimately harming transactions in a challenging market.
Zillow has stated it remains committed to helping buyers make informed choices. Listings will now contain links to the website of First Street Foundation, the non-profit climate risk research group that originally supplied the data for the on-site tool.
Experts Warn of 'Flying Blind' Buyers
Matthew Eby, founder and chief executive of First Street, criticised the move, arguing it leaves prospective homeowners dangerously uninformed. "The risk doesn't go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability," Eby said. He warned that families may only discover the need for costly flood insurance after a disaster, or find that wildfire cover is unaffordable in their area.
Eby linked the push to delist the data to a stressed real estate environment, where a lack of affordable housing and repeated climate-driven disasters are causing insurers to raise premiums or withdraw from states like California and Florida. "Climate risk data didn't suddenly become inconvenient. It became harder to ignore in a stressed market," he asserted.
Mounting Climate Costs Reshape US Housing
The controversy unfolds against a backdrop of escalating climate impacts on the American housing market. Last year, disasters intensified by the climate crisis caused an estimated $182bn in damages, one of the highest figures on record. Consequently, home insurance – essential for securing a mortgage – is becoming scarcer and more expensive across much of the country.
This trend clashes with another: more Americans are moving to disaster-prone regions like Florida and the southwest, areas increasingly battered by hurricanes and heatwaves. The tension highlights a growing dilemma in property valuation.
Jesse Keenan, a climate risk expert at Tulane University, noted that while there is bipartisan recognition for government-standardised risk assessment, the science of evaluating individual properties has limits. "I do not believe that this is a sign that the brokerage industry is trying to hide climate risks," Keenan said. "Brokerage firms know they cannot stop the transmission of climate risk information because climate impacts are already being felt far and wide."
Eby defended First Street's methodology, stating its models are peer-reviewed and validated against real outcomes. The debate over transparency versus marketability in property sales is set to intensify as the physical and financial shocks of climate change continue to mount.
