Zillow has quietly removed climate-risk scores from more than one million home listings across the United States, stepping back from one of the most visible attempts to place climate exposure directly in front of buyers at the moment of price comparison. The move follows growing resistance from real-estate listing services and agents who argue that current home-level climate models remain too uncertain to be displayed as definitive scores alongside asking prices.
For buyers navigating a market where the typical existing home now sells for about 415,000 dollars (≈385,000 euros) and mortgage affordability is already stretched, the removal of on-page risk labels changes how easily climate exposure can be factored into purchase decisions. The data still exist. What has changed is visibility.
From front and center warning to one extra click
Zillow introduced climate-risk scores nationwide in 2024 using data from First Street Foundation, a nonprofit climate-analytics group. Each property received numerical ratings for flood, wildfire, extreme heat, wind and air quality risk over a 30-year horizon. The scores were displayed prominently on listing pages alongside price, taxes and mortgage estimates.
In late 2025, those numbers disappeared. The climate section on listings now contains only an explanatory note and an external link directing users to First Street’s website, where the same scores remain available for free. FEMA flood-zone information and Zillow’s own climate-risk map layer are still accessible on the platform, but the immediate visual impact has been softened.
Zillow says the change reflects differences in listing-service rules across the country rather than a reversal on climate transparency. Yet inside the industry, the timing and scope of the removal highlight just how contentious the public display of climate risk has become.
Why listing services pushed back
The strongest opposition came from California’s Regional Multiple Listing Service, one of the largest in the country. Its leadership questioned whether some neighborhood-level flood probabilities were realistic, pointing to areas that had not flooded for decades yet were flagged as having extremely high short-term flood risk.
Agents echoed those concerns. In practice, high-risk labels were already influencing buyer behavior. Some reported canceled showings after shoppers noticed severe flood or wildfire scores, while homeowners complained there was no clear appeal process to challenge ratings they believed were inaccurate. In highly priced coastal markets, where insurance costs are already straining affordability, climate scores became a flashpoint.
For brokers, the fear was not theoretical. A red “severe risk” badge attached to a seven-figure listing can reshape buyer perception instantly, regardless of whether that risk might only materialize decades into the future or depend on multiple uncertain assumptions.
Climate risk is no longer abstract in housing economics
The debate unfolds against a backdrop of intensifying financial exposure to climate hazards. Across the United States, the median existing-home price has pushed above 415,000 dollars, while average home values tracked by Zillow hover around 360,000 dollars (≈335,000 euros). Growth has slowed, but prices remain historically elevated.
Insurance, however, is accelerating in the opposite direction. In the most climate-exposed regions, homeowners now pay on average more than 80 percent higher premiums than those in lower-risk areas. In markets such as Miami and New Orleans, annual premiums of 8,000 to more than 20,000 dollars are no longer exceptional. On a 600,000-dollar home (≈555,000 euros), that can translate into insurance consuming three to four percent of property value each year.
Nationally, more than a quarter of all homes by value are now exposed to at least one severe climate risk when flood, fire and wind hazards are combined. In dollar terms, that represents trillions in residential assets whose long-term risk profile is still being repriced.
In this context, a climate-risk score is not simply an academic indicator. It increasingly interacts with lending decisions, insurance availability and long-term household budgets.
How reliable are home-level climate models?
First Street Foundation argues that its models integrate historic disaster data, topography and forward-looking climate projections to estimate how risk will evolve over coming decades. The group maintains that many official flood maps lag behind physical reality because they do not fully incorporate climate change.
Independent academic research broadly supports the idea that flood and wildfire risks are beginning to be capitalized into home prices, often through insurance costs and post-disaster repricing. In flood-prone neighborhoods, observed price discounts typically range from low single digits to more than 15 percent, depending on location, disclosure practices and recent disaster memory.
Yet scientists also warn that granular, property-specific risk scores can give a false sense of precision. Soil composition, drainage infrastructure, elevation micro-variations and even unrecorded historical works all affect actual risk in ways national-scale models cannot perfectly capture. When homeowners encounter scores that directly contradict lived experience, confidence in the broader system can erode quickly.
This tension sits at the heart of Zillow’s dilemma: climate risk is real, rising and financially material, but the tools used to measure it house by house remain probabilistic rather than definitive.
How other platforms are responding
Zillow is not alone in recalibrating its approach. Redfin continues to display climate-risk estimates but now allows sellers to request removal of scores they consider inaccurate. Realtor.com is reassessing how it presents climate data, particularly in regions where listing services have objected.
At the same time, standards organizations and regulators are moving toward more formalized climate-risk disclosure in real-estate due diligence. New property-resilience assessment frameworks aim to integrate physical climate hazards alongside traditional inspections, contamination checks and structural assessments. Banks and insurers are also sharpening their own forward-risk modeling under regulatory pressure.
The direction of travel is clear: climate risk is becoming embedded in housing finance. The unresolved question is how directly it should confront consumers at the first point of sale.
What the change means for buyers
For buyers, Zillow’s redesign mainly introduces friction rather than removing access. The information is still there, but it now requires intent to seek it out. In practice, this shifts more responsibility onto households to investigate flood, fire and heat exposure early in the purchasing process rather than relying on a platform warning.
In high-risk regions, failing to do so can be costly. On a typical 400,000-dollar home (≈370,000 euros), the difference between a low-risk and high-risk insurance profile can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a standard 30-year mortgage once premiums, deductibles and potential uninsured losses are included.
For first-time buyers already stretching to qualify for a loan, those hidden future costs can quickly turn an apparently affordable home into a long-term financial burden.
Implications for sellers and market pricing
For sellers, the disappearance of bold climate-risk badges may ease short-term marketing pressure, particularly in exposed coastal and wildfire-prone areas. Yet it does not change the underlying economics. Insurers, lenders and institutional investors increasingly price climate risk whether or not it appears on a consumer listing page.
Evidence is already emerging that home-price growth in some high-risk markets is lagging safer inland regions as premiums rise and buyer caution grows. Over time, even without explicit scores on Zillow, climate exposure is likely to remain a quiet drag on valuations in the most vulnerable zones.
The broader meaning for housing transparency
Zillow’s decision encapsulates a wider industry struggle over how to balance transparency with model uncertainty. Consumers are being told, rightly, that climate change will reshape housing risk and costs. At the same time, the tools designed to express that risk at the level of individual homes are still evolving and remain imperfect.
Removing the scores from prominent display does not make the risk disappear. It simply shifts it from an immediate visual signal into the background of due diligence, insurance underwriting and future price correction.
What comes next is unlikely to be a return to climate silence. Instead, the housing market appears to be entering a more contested phase of climate-risk disclosure, in which standards, appeal mechanisms and presentation formats will be refined under pressure from all sides. Zillow’s quiet redesign marks not the end of climate data in property listings, but a recalibration at the start of a much longer debate.
