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Zillow Is Adding a “Climate Risk Threat Score” to Listings

The score takes factors like floods, wildfires, wind, heat, and air quality into consideration.

A new feature from Zillow should put home buyers at ease.
A new feature from Zillow should put home buyers at ease. | SOPA Images/GettyImages

Melting glaciers, rusty Alaskan rivers, and contaminated seafood are only a few consequences of global warming. Drastic weather changes, such as more intense floods and heat waves, are also growing concerns. This has led more individuals to consider climate risks when buying homes. Now, the real estate marketplace Zillow is helping people make educated home purchases by adding climate risk threat scores to listings.

The company will source its data through First Street Foundation, a non-profit that analyzes climate risks. Prospective buyers can use a color-coded interactive map or view individual home listings to explore the five categories—flood, wildfire, wind, heat, and air quality—that determine the climate risk threat score. The information will be available for for-sale listings in the U.S.

Additionally, house hunters can view a property’s history of extreme events as well as its risk estimates for 15 and 30 years down the road. People worried about finding insurance can also peruse customized coverage recommendations from the site.

The climate risk threat score feature will be launched for the website and iOS app by the end of 2024. Android users will get to enjoy it in early next year. 

“Climate risks are now a critical factor in home-buying decisions. Healthy markets are ones where buyers and sellers have access to all relevant data for their decisions,” Skylar Olsen, chief economist at Zillow, said in a statement. “As concerns about flooding, extreme temperatures, and wildfires grow—and what that might mean for future insurance costs—this tool also helps agents inform their clients in discussing climate risk, insurance, and long-term affordability.”

As extreme weather becomes more common, more places are requiring home sellers and lessors to disclose flood history. Ten states—including Florida, Texas, and New York—have enacted or refined such laws since 2018. Over one-third of states, however, have no flood disclosure regulations in place.

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