Last year, Zillow started adding a climate risk score to home listings, to give potential buyers a better idea of how susceptible a property could be to weather hazards based on its location. So a home in California would probably have a high score for wildfire risk, while one in Florida might have a high score for hurricanes.
Not everyone was happy with this though, namely the people trying to sell houses. Real estate agents complained, saying the scores were misleading potential buyers and causing lost sales. “Displaying the probability of a specific home flooding this year or within the next five years can have a significant impact on the perceived desirability of that property,” said Art Carter, CEO of the California Regional Multiple Listing Service.
That’s why Zillow recently made the decision to swap the climate scores for a link to data from First Street, which originally provided the assessments. “The risk doesn't go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability,” said company spokesperson Matthew Eby. For buyers who still want to see these scores up front, Redfin, Realtor.com and Homes.com still display them on the listings.
