Zillow Drops Climate Risk Scores After Agents Complained of Lost Sales
- Reference: 0180256101
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/12/02/0536226/zillow-drops-climate-risk-scores-after-agents-complained-of-lost-sales
- Source link:
> Zillow first added the data to the site in September 2024, [2]saying that more than 80% of buyers consider climate risks when purchasing a new home. But last month, following objections from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS), Zillow removed the listings' climate scores. In their place is a subtle link to their records at First Street, the climate risk analytic startup that provides the data.
>
> "When buyers lack access to clear climate-risk information, they make the biggest financial decision of their lives while flying blind," First Street spokesperson Matthew Eby told TechCrunch via email. "The risk doesn't go away; it just moves from a pre-purchase decision into a post-purchase liability." First Street's climate risk scores first appeared on Realtor.com in 2020, where they remain. They also still appear on Redfin and and Homes.com. The New York-based startup has raised more than $50 million from investors including General Catalyst, Congruent Ventures, and Galvanize Climate Solutions, according to PitchBook.
>
> Art Carter, the CRMLS CEO, [3]told The New York Times that "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." He also questioned the accuracy of First Street's data, saying he didn't think that areas which haven't flooded in the last 40 to 50 years were likely to flood in the next five.
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/01/zillow-drops-climate-risk-scores-after-agents-complained-of-lost-sales/
[2] https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2024-09-26-Zillow-introduces-First-Streets-comprehensive-climate-risk-data-on-for-sale-listings-across-the-US#:~:text=Zillow%20introduces%20First%20Street's%20comprehensive,the%20US%20-%20Sep%2026,%202024
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/climate/zillow-climate-risk-scores-homes.html
"thinks" (Score:5, Insightful)
He also questioned the accuracy of First Street's data, saying he didn't think that areas which haven't flooded in the last 40 to 50 years were likely to flood in the next five.
What he really means is "there are a lot of doomed properties we can make one more commission on."
If I'm being uncharitable, he can of course make me a fool by insuring buyers' flood risks for 5 years.
Re: "thinks" (Score:5, Insightful)
The free market doesn't work well when consumers are making informed decisions. It's important to obfuscate details as much as possible in order to ensure a sale.
Re: (Score:1)
Reference please. Adam Smith and Andrey Markov were 2-nd cousins ...
Re: (Score:1)
I looked at First Street's data for my house, and I question their accuracy. The historical data, and thus all of their projections, is wrong. And it's all wrong in the same way - despite a random walk, they show linear increases.
And seriously, if a place hasn't flooded in generations, isn't that a pretty good basis for a prediction? It's been a while since I studied statistics, but I just did a linear regression on 50 years of 0's, and it indicates more zeros are coming.
First Street is kind of garbage (Score:5, Informative)
I was clicking around Zillow a few days ago and noticed the First Street link. I clicked on it for a few local homes where I know exactly where they are and they gave some of them nonexistent flood and wildfire risks. I don't know how they distill their data but I'd say they're doing it wrong, or erring on the side of paranoia. As both a homeowner and a potential home buyer it's not something I would ever look at. In California you need to rely on the Natural Hazard Disclosure Report for the property you are looking to buy.
Also, flood zone determinations as a general thing are often widely disputed for insurance purposes, sometimes properties are not considered to be in a flood zone when they should be, and sometimes they are considered in a flood zone when they are not.
Re: (Score:2)
> Also, flood zone determinations as a general thing are often widely disputed for insurance purposes, sometimes properties are not considered to be in a flood zone when they should be, and sometimes they are considered in a flood zone when they are not.
I forget the terminology, but there's a classification where FEMA determines flood risk by a topographical map, and they overestimate. If you buy land in that category, you can pay for a boots-on-the-ground survey and typically get the flood zone size reduced somewhat.
Re: (Score:2)
I was unimpressed by the accuracy of their results for my home as well. Apparently, I'm at risk for increasing wind. Comparing their graphs to my memory, I think it's just an alarm factory. They claim the wind has been getting steadily worse (stronger), but this isn't true. We do get strong winds and tornadoes, but their graphs show a steady increase rather than the wild variation that is what we actually get. According to them, this (calm) year was worse than the years when there were multiple severe
A good look... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing that screams 'trying to con you' quite as hard as a participant in a nominal free-market scenario trying to preserve ignorance and information asymmetry.
Informed consumers (Score:2)
We are not.
Re: Informed consumers (Score:2)
[1]https://youtu.be/0V_E_Jnyhks?s... [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/0V_E_Jnyhks?si=GJY3HvdfHTNMWJtb
Re: (Score:2)
Is Homer's car the economy or our democracy or both?
Re: Informed consumers (Score:2)
Ill just say yes
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, we're all Homo Economicus by default. Perfectly informed, perfectly rational, perfectly selfish. Otherwise the whole system would be a broken farce! So each buyer will independently source their own perfect climate risk data, obviously.
You might just... (Score:2)
Be in Florida, and end up in a Flood zone, OR buy a property with Owl's or other un-movable protected wildlife if you don't pay attention. Best friend has a property next to him in Cape Coral, that is home to 2 mating Owls... They "Own" it. Guy bought it, owls were found, can't build. Also can't sell it. Its functionally useless. But you still have to pay the taxes on it....
Re: (Score:2)
I needed a wetlands permit to put a pipe in a ditch because it had a 4 inch trickle of water flowing through it. The federal government made me pay for an archeologist to search the ditch for shipwrecks. Fortunately there weren't any. Also needed an archeologist on site during all ground work because it was within 10 miles of a Civil War battlefield (all of Northern Virginia is within 10 miles of a battlefield - doesn't seem to bother the data centers).
The process took two years and cost $30,000. Good t
Re: (Score:1)
You should not be building on/in/about wetlands or beaches or old-growth forests. Live near other people where children populate K-12. . Don't enshittify the environs with your old grubby human finger-prints where brook-trout or red-fish might reproduce.
If you can predict flooding (Score:1)
You can make an absolute shit ton of money. But you can't. And neither can they.
Re: (Score:2)
If it has flooded in the past, it will likely flood again sometime in the future. So yes I can predict higher risk of flooding.
Obviously sellers don't want you to do that. Honestly after a second flood, a property should be condemned against future residential use after paying out the damage value.
Re: (Score:2)
nonsense... if you buy low lying land next to a low bank river, you can bet it will flood. period.
Re: (Score:2)
You know that is not what I meant and that level of insight hardly seems worth paying for. Useful predictions in this case necessarily go beyond the obvious.
Re: (Score:3)
“Predict flooding” is a uselessly vague term for you to use. Like saying that when my mother-in-law got her terminal cancer diagnosis, the oncologist didn’t predict her death because you have in mind some level of precision for a prediction that she would die that meant that the terminal diagnosis wasn’t a good prediction of her death. Sowhat, specifically, is the detail that you think First First Street are claiming to be able to provide insight on, for which you don’t think t
Re: (Score:2)
> “Predict flooding” is a uselessly vague term for you to use.
Indeed it is all about the granularity. That's the difference between making money from the usefulness of your predictions rather than just making money convincing others your predictions are useful.
> Like saying that when my mother-in-law got her terminal cancer diagnosis, the oncologist didn’t predict her death because you have in mind some level of precision for a prediction that she would die that meant that the terminal diagnosis wasn’t a good prediction of her death.
I'm sorry about your mother-in-law, but regardless, everybody dies eventually, while cancer definitely narrows the scope of that prediction. Doctors will often give patients some range of assumed life expectancy based on their condition. If these folks can say flooding is likely in 3 years or 10 years that i
Good idea (Score:2)
They need to remove noise and air pollution as well if they ever posted such data.
Did you know cigarettes aren't really bad for you if you remove the negative press?
All that medical science stuff will just scare you so we removed it.
The market for lemons (Score:3)
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
When there is asymetric information in a market or uncertainty it hurts the one with the information (or seller in this case) just as much as the one with less information (buyer) as the one with less information will be unwilling to take as much of a risk. In this case all buyers will pay less.
Funny thing, Roman slave traders figured this out and by using a guarantor were able to get a higher price.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
kowtowing to cry babbies (Score:3)
I absolutely used this feature in Zillow to eliminate potential homes in flood plains. The data was based on FEMA flood plain maps which insurance companies also use to deny your claim if they believe it's in a flood zone and you didn't purchase special flood insurance. This was a really useful feature and of course people will use it for purchase decisions. Another case of a buyer beware, and oh, by the way, you're fucked because useful information is harder to find.
Re: (Score:3)
for example: [1]https://msc.fema.gov/portal/se... [fema.gov]
[1] https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=14513%20Jordan%20RD%20arlington%20WA
Re: (Score:2)
Then check the flood maps instead of what analysis some fly-by-night group with a ChatGPT subscription produced. I checked my house in Realtor.com, looked at the First Street section, and laughed. The historical trends appeared to have been made up.
They seem to assume a linear increase in risk, regardless of what actually happened the prior year.
Zillow sucks (Score:2)
Zillow is a shitty company that provides a shitty service. I'm shocked anyone still uses their garbage.
Name One Better (Score:2)
Name one service that does what Zillow does better than Zillow. It's eiether teh perfect service with all of 10 listings onit, or it's some total shit site trying to be a Zillow wannabe.
Your realestate agent doesn't work for you (Score:3)
If you are a seller they want you to charge under the market rate so they can sell it faster. If you charge 5% less than the market they might sell it for one day of work, that's better than weeks at the market rate.
Buyers agents are even worse, they want you to pay to much and to ignore faults with houses so that you buy sooner. They also steer buyers away from homes that are being sold without an agent even though it would save their client 2 or 3%. I've seen buyers agents recomment home inspectors and then tell the home inspector not to look closely at foundations or look for asbestos.
The fix is easy. Make the buyer pay their agents fee. Then they would be incentivies to be more careful and it would allow sellers not to use an agent at all.
Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
> ... questioned the accuracy of First Street's data, saying he didn't think that areas which haven't flooded in the last 40 to 50 years were likely to flood in the next five.
So good to read a scientific, rational approach to analyzing claims. And so comforting to know that climate and weather patterns aren't changing, and that climate and associated risks over the next five years will be the same as they were during the previous 40 or 50.
/sarc
Re: Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
That seems like a terrible take.
Maybe I'm cool with losing everything and getting a check, but someone else value great grandma's doll collection as priceless.
A flood has a different cost for different people and it doesn't seem to me it's completely offset by insurance.
That's assuming the insurance companies choose to and are allowed to price by each lot based on flood data.
The assumption that municiolalities are choosing economically optimal mitigation seems sus to me too.
Re: Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
> The assumption that municiolalities are choosing economically optimal mitigation seems sus to me too.
To whit: [1]Juneau, Alaska commissioned [outsideinradio.org] updated hazard maps, particularly looking at elevated landslide risk. The city planned to then use those to forbid new development in certain high-risk areas. Presumably, homeowners insurance premiums would reflect the new maps, too. All in an effort to gauge a real risk and pro-actively avoid it.
People pitched a fit, city government caved, and the maps were [2]never adopted [juneau.org]. [ [3]further [ktoo.org] [4]reading [alaskapublic.org]]
Because we all know that landslides take public opinion into account.
[1] https://outsideinradio.org/shows/til-the-landslide-brings-it-down
[2] https://juneau.org/community-development/special-projects/landslide-avalanche-assessment
[3] https://www.ktoo.org/2023/12/12/juneau-assembly-votes-to-eliminate-development-restrictions-in-landslide-zones/
[4] https://alaskapublic.org/news/alaska-desk/2025-02-13/communities-in-southeast-alaska-are-mapping-their-landslide-risk-its-complicated
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also good luck getting that check. It can take years.
Florida in particular is a mess right now and nobody is doing anything to fix it. We've got a fuck ton of retirees who can't afford to move, aren't dying any time soon and are stuck in condos we know are likely to fail without expensive retrofits they can't afford. It's a miracle there hasn't been another collapse and we're just hoping they drop dead of old age before it hits them.
Re: (Score:2)
F-k off with the impersonations. It is neither funny nor useful.
Re: (Score:1)
The point is if you want to know the real risk, you already do; if insurance quotes are sky high, the reason is because they have to be for the underwriting to make sense. So if you know are looking at the property as an investment; maybe its going to be an airb&b that you will fill with cheap wallmart furniture and junk-art you don't care about. Then you ask if the numbers make sense.
If your kids are going to sleep there every night, and you are going to store the family heirlooms you maybe move on...
A
Re: (Score:3)
But I was told that the sole reason insurance rates are high is because of BIDEN!!!!1!
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Informative)
FEMA was going to require rebuilding include mitigation for future floods buuut Trump [1]https://www.floods.org/news-vi... [floods.org]
[1] https://www.floods.org/news-views/asfpm-updates/fema-halts-rule-that-protects-against-future-floods/
Confusing Price and Value (Score:5, Informative)
I think you are confusing the price with value. Having your home flooded has a lot more consequences than the price of replacing it. And flood insurance doesn't usually even cover the actual price. People are still self-insuring to a degree even for the financial costs associated with flooding even without considering the non-financial costs.
Re: (Score:2)
> There is zero value in some big scary climate risk number also being disclosed, because A that risk accounted for if you are studying the details anyway and does not help you make a rational decision, because it literally does not affect you beyond the places where it is already baked into the numbers.
If you don't care why the insurance is so expensive or unavailable (e.g. high risk of flooding) then maybe you also don't care about why the house's price is so high (e.g. nice location, good construction, etc
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Science? I don't know if this is really science. They seem to be assigning the qualities of a population to the individuals in that population. That is a fallacy. The likelihood that a house in a particular area is going to flood is not determined or even informed by the likelihood a random house in that area is going to flood.
So your sarcasm may be misplaced. Unless you mean "Scence"/sarc
Of course its clear the MLS argument is basically "people will pay less for a house if they know it might flood so you
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, that's a perfectly fine way to look at it. What's the statistical trend for the area? 0 floods every year for 50 years. That's not a hard trendline to draw.
And let's not forget that First Street may just be crap. Have you checked what it said about where you live? Where I am, their historical data was as bad as their predictions are likely to be. They show a steady increase in wind and fire risk. I have lived here long enough to remember how there were quite a few tornadoes a couple years