Zillow Doesn't Care If Climate Change Destroys Your New Home

[SamuelTheThird]

When we try to plan our lives rationally, the climate crisis stymies us at every turn. There are already so many other factors to consider—where can we find community and work? Where can we afford to live?—and useful information can be hard to come by. Zillow, the real estate listings platform, just made matters worse. In October, The New York Times recently reported, the company ceased publishing climate risk with its listings. The listings platform had only begun this potentially helpful practice last year, using data from First Street, a risk-modeling firm.

For homeowners, failing to consider climate risks could be catastrophic—in fact, it already is. Almost half the homes in the United States are at serious risk from the climate crisis, whether due to flooding, wildfires, hurricanes, heat, or bad air quality. Adding to the problem, while potential homebuyers struggle to obtain data to guide their decisions, the insurance industry does not suffer from challenges of this kind. Insurers are making rational decisions in their own interests, leaving homeowners with insurmountable costs, or even uninsured. State Farm canceled 72,000 home insurance policies last year, leaving those homeowners unprotected in future disasters. And Hurricane Helene inflicted some $200 billion in damages last year, of which, Grist reported, almost none were covered by insurance. While in some cases insurers are refusing to cover risky homes, in others, they are setting prices so high that millions are going without, or getting cheaper, less comprehensive insurance.

The result of all this, the Senate Budget Committee warned a year ago, will be “a collapse in property values with the potential to trigger a full-scale financial crisis.” Early this year, First Street, the firm that provided climate risk data to Zillow before last month, predicted that over the next three decades, Americans would lose nearly $1.5 trillion in assets due to the damage that climate change would wreak on our homes. For many American homeowners, this is a quick path to financial ruin: Their home is their most valuable asset, with home equity accounting for 45 percent of their net worth. The percentage is much higher for Black and Hispanic homeowners, who tend to have much less wealth overall than white homeowners.

https://newrepublic.com/article/203982/zillow-climate-risk-home-house

[AZJonnie]

1. 1.5 trillion over 3 decades sounds low to me, if one hurricane did $200B

Maybe if it's only direct damage, but if you count in how many regions are simply going to become uninhabitable (due to heat and/or lack of water and/or persistent storm damage that regions simply cannot recover from), and the homes in the entirety of the region become worthless, it'll be higher. And if a doomsday glacier peels off Antarctica or Greenland, and sea level rises a foot or even multiple feet, in a short span of time? We'll be longing for the good old days, where estimates of only $1.5T were written as if they were drastic.

[AZJonnie]

2. It's not exactly Zillow's responsibility. Their job is to sell homes, or help others sell theirs

Putting this kind of information on the site was, I would imagine, seen as a net-negative by the customers who pay the majority of the bills, which is to say, sellers of homes. It probably also opened them up to possible litigation, so their lawyers likely didn't want this info on their site either.

If "we" as in the people of the USA want this information to be available to consumers, we're probably going to have to pass federal laws mandating its inclusion on all listings posted everywhere.

As the article says, insurance companies have this information, and one of the parts of buying property is finding an insurer. So, even more valuable would be stronger laws that mandate that property insurance companies divulge what they assume about climate change effects to home buyers when they are shopping for insurance. And we need laws mandating that they divulge it YEARS in advance before they are permitted to just close up shop in a region they've previously provided coverage for.

[Auggie]

5. Exactly. And do your own homework. It isn't rocket science.

When the internet was still in it's infancy, decades ago, I made phone calls, talking to neighborhood homeowners and city officials on the flood potential of properties in which I was interested. I checked the elevation too. If a house bordered a hillside (potential for mudslide in California) it was an immediate no, along with heavily-forested surrounding areas.

[flvegan]

3. Not sure I'd ever rely on Zillow for environmental risk.

Because I'm not an idiot.

[Old Crank]

4. I can see it not being their job to have environmental risk.

But they are pretty much the National go to service to see house listing nationwide.

Have them include a link to a risk information site.

[Norrrm]

6. Isn't there something about (not) disclosing pertinent information in a home sale?

This has become pertinent.

[GreatGazoo]

7. Insurance companies are the best source of that info

and insurance will be factored into any financing.

Climate modeling was very hard to come by until recently. Not sure why. They climate of Georgia in 1950 has moved steadily northward so the crudest models just continue that trend. Parts of the country are now on the threshold of unlivable, eg Phoenix. Meanwhile oligarchs have been investing in odd areas of North America -- including Billings Montana and Rochester NY. In some data models, Rochester is the most undervalued real estate in the country and comes with the legacy urban planning of Xerox, Kodak and Bausch and Lomb. Plus the most over-educated neighbors available.

[MineralMan]

8. Why Would Zillow Care about That?

It just tries to estimate home values as accurately as it can. It's not about anything else. Expecting private companies to care about anything except what they consider to be important is simply expecting too much.

[PCIntern]

9. Anecdote:

My home is on the worst flooding block due to bay tides in the Downbeach area of the island which contains Atlantic City at its northern end. Except for Sandy, the water may come up the driveway and is about 3 feet below my front door threshold.

There is no question that things have gotten much worse in the 41 years in which I’ve owned the property. If anyone were to buy it from me there is zero doubt that the house would be demolished and a living quarters would be constructed commencing one full story above the ground level. This is what is going on in my neighborhood. Thus, the value of the home and land is equal to the value of the land alone for our homes constructed in the 60’s and 70’s. Fascinating.

[Greg_In_SF]

10. Why would

they care?