Zillow has stopped publishing climate risk ratings for sales listings that show the likelihood of properties being impacted by extreme weather, The New York Times reports. The feature introduced by the real estate listings site last year used data from risk-modeling company First Street to forecast which homes are most vulnerable to floods, wildfires, wind, extreme heat, and poor air quality, as climate conditions pose an increasing risk to properties.
The change came into effect earlier this month following complaints from the California Regional Multiple Listing Service (CRMLS) regarding the accuracy of First Street’s risk models. “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,” Art Carter, CRMLS chief executive officer, told The NYT.
Sales listings on Zillow now link users to First Street’s website instead, where they can manually find climate risk scores for specific properties. First Street data shows that millions more properties are at risk of flooding compared to government estimates.