-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
A quiet decision by the nation’s largest home-listing authority may soon determine who’s legally responsible for warning homebuyers about climate risk.
Last month, the California Regional Multiple Listing Service — the dominant database used by real estate agents in the country’s largest housing market — pressured Zillow to remove climate-risk scores produced by First Street, an independent research group whose flood and wildfire models are widely used by insurers, banks and public agencies. Zillow depends on CRMLS’ feed for individual home and rental listings, so it quickly complied. Overnight, climate-risk information disappeared not only from Zillow’s California listings but from every home listed across its national platform.
CRMLS framed this as a dispute about scientific accuracy. But the more significant impact falls on real estate agents.
Under long-standing principles of real estate law and material fact disclosure, agents have a duty to disclose known risks that could materially affect a buyer’s decision. When an agent or broker is aware — or reasonably should be aware — of credible hazard data for a property, the information can’t be ignored simply because it vanishes from a consumer-facing site.
By disputing these independent risk models and urging widely used real estate platforms to suppress them, CRMLS has effectively failed to shield agents and brokers from bearing responsibility. Instead, it may actually have done the opposite — making the agents who rely on it legally responsible for disclosures without the support of standardized, third-party transparency tools.
When a buyer later discovers that a property faces severe flood or wildfire risk that had been modeled and made publicly available and considers litigation, they’re likely to focus on whether their agent or broker fulfilled their duty to disclose information at the time of sale. They will also no doubt ask why the dominant listing authority intervened to eliminate these risk warnings while positioning itself as an arbiter of their accuracy.
The National Assn. of Realtors recognizes this tension. Its own guidance warns agents and brokers against positioning themselves as climate science authorities, and instead urges transparent reliance on reputable third-party risk data. CRMLS’ campaign to dismiss independent models cuts directly against that risk management approach, leaving agents and brokers more exposed to liability, not less.
Recent events underscore why third-party data is essential. After January’s Eaton fire in Altadena, a Los Angeles Times investigation reported that California’s official wildfire hazard maps failed to identify many of the neighborhoods that ultimately burned, capturing only about 21% of the homes at risk. By contrast, First Street’s independent models had successfully flagged about 94% of the destroyed homes as facing “severe” or “extreme” risk.
Accurate flood-risk mapping tells a similar story. Most Americans assume risk exists only within the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Special Flood Hazard Areas. However, FEMA acknowledges that a majority of flood-insurance claims come from outside those areas. The agency also concedes that more than 70% of U.S. flood maps are outdated, with many reflecting assumptions from the 1970s and ’80s. Investigative reporting has repeatedly documented events where FEMA maps understated dangers while independent models accurately warned of flood exposure.
CRMLS objects to the disclosure of these risk scores based on probabilistic modeling. Yet probability-based forecasting is the backbone of insurance pricing, underwriting and virtually every other major financial risk system in America. Courts demand neither mathematical perfection nor deterministic guarantees. They require reasonable, evidence-based disclosure when material risks are known.
Modern climate-risk modeling meets that standard. First Street’s methodologies are transparent, peer reviewed and repeatedly validated against real-world losses, which is why banks, insurers, engineering firms and federal agencies all rely on these projections to deploy capital and manage public safety planning.
The practical effect of suppressing public risk disclosures is not legal insulation for real estate agents and brokers. It may be the opposite. Without standardized third-party data presented directly to buyers, agents may carry greater responsibility for communicating these risks themselves. When hazards later materialize, the question will not be whether Zillow showed a risk score. The question will be whether the agent discharged their professional duty to inform the buyer of known and credible risks to the property.
Zillow’s role also raises questions. The company depends on CRMLS’ data feed and access to its California listings. But if CRMLS’ objections were limited to California, why did Zillow remove climate-risk scores across the country? What began as a regional dispute resulted in a nationwide rollback of scientific data that consumers had relied on for years.
CRMLS already suggested that it intends to pressure other major real estate platforms, including Redfin, Realtor.com and Homes.com, to follow suit. Should these platforms comply, real estate agents could find themselves selling homes in a market where a single influential muliple listing service effectively dictates which risk disclosures are publicly available across the national marketplace. And if those suppressed risks materialize in damaged or destroyed homes, as is often the case, the liability trail will be long and clear.
Dave Jones is the director of the Climate Risk Initiative at UC Berkeley and a former California insurance commissioner.
Insights
L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.
Viewpoint
Perspectives
The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.
Ideas expressed in the piece
Zillow’s removal of climate risk scores, pressured by CRMLS, may actually increase legal liability for real estate agents rather than shield them from it, as agents retain a duty to disclose known risks under established real estate law regardless of whether standardized third-party data is visible to consumers[1][3].
Real estate agents and brokers cannot legally ignore credible hazard data simply because it disappears from consumer-facing platforms, and courts will likely focus on whether agents fulfilled their disclosure obligations at the time of sale rather than on what Zillow displayed[1].
First Street’s independent climate risk models are accurate, transparent, and peer-reviewed, having correctly identified approximately 94 percent of homes destroyed in the January Eaton fire in Altadena, significantly outperforming California’s official wildfire hazard maps which captured only about 21 percent of properties at risk[1].
Probability-based forecasting is the standard foundation for insurance pricing, underwriting, and financial risk systems across America, meeting the legal standard for evidence-based disclosure of material risks[1].
The National Association of Realtors itself warns agents against positioning themselves as climate science authorities and urges transparent reliance on reputable third-party risk data, an approach contradicted by CRMLS’s campaign to suppress independent models[1].
Zillow’s nationwide removal of climate scores, despite CRMLS objections being limited to California, represents an excessive and unjustified rollback that eliminates scientific data consumers had relied on for years across the entire country[1].
Different views on the topic
CRMLS and real estate agents contend that First Street’s predictive flood risk data does not always align with observed conditions, with listings identified as having very high projected flood chances despite experiencing no flooding for decades[3].
Displaying specific probability predictions for flooding can significantly impact a property’s perceived desirability and influence buyer behavior in ways agents argue are unfair and potentially misleading to consumers[3][4].
Market data shows that homes labeled with high climate risk scores sell substantially slower and sometimes for less money, with only 52 percent of high-risk homes selling compared to 71 percent of low-risk homes between June 2024 and March 2025, and Redfin research finding high-risk homes sold for approximately 1 percent less[2].
Real estate agents reported that buyers were canceling showings after seeing high risk scores and sellers were frustrated by an inability to challenge assessments they believed were inaccurate for their specific properties[2].
Experts acknowledge that translating global climate models to individual homes is complex, with factors like elevation, foundation design, and surrounding topography significantly affecting actual risk, meaning standardized scores may oversimplify nuanced situations[1].
Industry leaders call for standardized government models like Florida’s hurricane catastrophe model as a template for national risk assessments, rather than relying on multiple private companies producing vastly different assessments of identical properties[1][3].
FEMA flood maps, though outdated in some cases, are based on historical data that some argue is more reliable than predictive models, with the National Association of Realtors supporting disclosure requirements only when risks are known or in designated flood zones[2].
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
In our first episode, the L.A. Times columnist George Skelton sizes up the governors he’s known, what made them successful and whether the next one can measure up.
On screen, Errol Flynn played a series of daredevils, fortune hunters, and suave romantics. Off screen, he lived a life of outsize debauchery and recklessness, including a persistent interest in underage girls. In 1943, at the height of his fame, he faced trial in Los Angeles on charges of statutory rape.
Why would someone decide to risk their life for a country that is not their own? What might they be searching for? Call Sign Condor is a podcast about the thousands of Latin American soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine — for Ukraine.
