The Zillow App Will Now Show Climate Risks

Buying a house is already an arduous process. With housing shortages and interest rates driving prices up, the struggle to find a home—especially for first-time buyers—can feel impossible. Coupled with home insurance’s increasing precarity, it’s no longer about finding the "right fit", but ensuring that your investment won’t literally end up underwater. As storms, tornadoes, flooding, and fires increase in frequency and severity, homeowners could be taking on much greater risks than ever before. This week, Zillow announced that they will be introducing a new tool that will provide detailed information about flood, wildfire, wind, heat, and air quality to help home shoppers better understand insurance requirements and conditions that might affect their buying choices and insurance payments.

Understanding risks posed by climate change allows a buyer to feel more secure in their home and can also help homeowners predict costs, but according to US News and World Report, many mortgage originators and investors typically ignore climate-related reports and disasters, requiring individual buyers to do their own research. Potential buyers can call an insurance company to ask for a property’s claims history, or they might utilize other public data like the United States Geological Survey’s Seismic Hazard Models to determine earthquake probability. Local municipalities often provide information on water table levels and water testing, as well as building code violations that can make a home more vulnerable during weather events.  

Flooding, however, is a particularly difficult issue: buyers might consult the FEMA 100-year floodplain maps, but according to the National Resources Defense Council, FEMA’s maps "under-represent the actual risks of flooding," because, they continue, "FEMA only maps the 100-year floodplain with a 50th percentile confidence. That means there is only a 50 percent chance that a 100-year flood would stay inside the line that FEMA draws." North Carolina State University’s College of Natural Resources notes these maps can and do affect whether or not individuals choose to purchase flood insurance (typically not covered in standard policies). As a result, only four percent of US homeowners have flood insurance, while an ABC News analysis "identified as many as 20.8 million U.S. properties with an 80% or better chance of flooding by 2053."  

The ABC report was generated using data from First Street, a New York-based nonprofit research group that calculates property risks, using peer-reviewed research and data modeling to predict extreme weather and climate-related events. For their app, Zillow is partnering with the company to include information on risk mainstays like fire, flood, and wind risks, but also air quality—fine particulates that can cause respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses are exacerbated by humidity and air temperature. It’s all quite academic, but in the Zillow app, browsers will be able to view all of it translated into "risk scores, interactive maps, and insurance requirements." 

Perhaps this will be useful to residents of areas like Phoenix, Houston, and Florida that, while at high risk for climate change-related disasters, are still attracting millions of new residents each year. But this week’s tragic aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which plunged the American Southeast under deluges, storm surges, and high winds, has served as a wakeup call for many who believe there is such a place as a "climate-safe zone." Even in Asheville, which sits 2,000 feet above sea level and 300 miles from coastal areas, there has been widespread devastation. CBS speculates that it could be one of the costliest storms on record with nearly $110 billion in total damages and economic loss. Maybe, then, with more widespread and available data, Americans could force greater political will to address the climate crisis head on—if not inspire functional infrastructure to mitigate future disasters. 

Related reading: 
Giving Up on Homeowners Insurance? You’re Not Alone
Facing Our New Climate Reality

Photo by Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images