Redfin said that house hunters on its website are more likely to click into the climate-risk section of home listings when major natural disasters hit. The effect fades fairly quickly, though. Redfin is a real estate brokerage powered by Rocket.
Here’s a recent example.
The firm said that in the 90 days ahead of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, Redfin users clicked into the climate-risk section of California home listings 4.2% of the time, on average. But ib on Jan. 8—the day after the fires started—the percentage jumped to 5.7%, and on Jan. 12, it peaked at 7.8%. The click rate returned to its pre-fire average at the end of March and has stayed near that level since, Redfin said.
“Humans often have short memories when it comes to natural disasters,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said. “A major fire or storm can jolt homebuyers into paying attention to climate risk because the event feels fresh and likely to happen again, but this urgency is fleeting. That’s why local leaders have a small but crucial window after a disaster to educate people on disaster preparedness and resilience. Homeowners should think about natural disasters as an ongoing risk and have an action plan in case catastrophe strikes.”
Climate-risk information in Redfin’s home listings is provided by First Street.
Living in A Risk-Averse Area is Non-Negotiable
More than two-thirds (67.6%) of U.S. residents said that living in a place with a low risk of natural disaster is non-negotiable, according to a Redfin-commissioned survey of 4,000 respondents conducted by Ipsos in May 2025.
According to Redfin, the reality is that many people live in these places anyway, often because they want to be close to family or they found a home they love. But that is This may be starting to shift, though; more people moved out of than into flood-prone America for the first time since 2019 last year.
Homebuyer Engagement With Climate-Risk Data Also Spiked During Hurricane Season
Homebuyer engagement with climate-risk data also surged in Florida during the 2024 hurricane season, which included Hurricane Helene in late September and Hurricane Milton in early October.
In the 90 days leading up to Hurricane Helene, Redfin said that users clicked into the climate-risk section of Florida home listings 8% of the time, on average. By Sept. 29, 2024—three days after the storm made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region—the clickthrough rate had increased to 9.4%. It plateaued at 16.3% on Oct. 7, the same day a flood watch was issued for all of South Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton.
Redfin said that many cities declared states of emergency.
Hurricane Helene was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Milton was one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, the company said.
Florida’s clickthrough rate fell back to its pre-Helene average in mid-October 2024 and stayed there since.
Hurricanes Affected Number of Views, Redfin Said
Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina also were affected by these storms, but saw relatively small jumps in homebuyer engagement with climate-risk data, Redfin said.
Nationwide, both the 2024 hurricane season and the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires resulted in increases in the national clickthrough rate.
Nationally, Redfin said its users clicked on the climate-risk section of home listings 3.3% of the time the week before Hurricane Helene. It said the percentage started going uup the week Hurricane Helene made landfall and peaked at 4.1% the week Hurricane Milton made landfall.
The click rate returned to pre-Helene levels the week beginning Oct. 21, 2024.
The national clickthrough rate rose from 3.5% the week before the Los Angeles wildfires to 3.9% the week of the fires. It fell back to pre-fire levels the week beginning March 24, 2025.
Redfin said it took about three months for the clickthrough rate to return to “normal” after the fires started burning, but it took less than one month for it to return to “normal” after the two major hurricanes in 2024.
The national clickthrough rate also climbed slightly around the Fourth of July this year, when destructive flooding along the Guadalupe River hit Central Texas, killing 27 people at a Christian youth camp.
It was 3.3% the week of the floods, and had risen to a peak of 3.6% by mid-July.
“While the increases in the national clickthrough rate are small, they are meaningful,” said Redfin Senior Economist Yingqi Xu. “It’s clear that the spike in Florida’s clickthrough rate during hurricane season and the spike in California’s clickthrough rate during the Los Angeles fires drove increases in the national clickthrough rate. The national uptick is more muted because it includes the behavior of house hunters in other states who weren’t affected by disasters. This indicates that natural disasters primarily impact the behavior of people searching for homes near the disaster zone—not those searching in other areas.”
Redfin said the national clickthrough rate was at 3.2% as of the end of October 2025.
Mississippi Had Highest Clickthrough Rate
Redfin said its users clicked into the climate-risk section of Mississippi home listings 9.6% of the time in the third quarter—the highest clickthrough rate of any state. Louisiana was next at (9.2%), followed by Vermont (8.9%), West Virginia (8.3%) and Florida (7.2%).
Redfin said that the lowest clickthrough rates were in Washington, D.C. (2.4%), Nevada (3.2%), Nebraska (3.3%), Minnesota (3.4%) and Arizona (3.4%).
The firm said that Mississippi and Louisiana are the two most vulnerable states in the Climate Vulnerability Index, a ranking by the Environmental Defense Fund and Texas A&M University. Both are prone to hurricanes and tornados, and were devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Louisiana and Mississippi rank in the top three when it comes to per-capita disaster losses over the past 45 years, according to an analysis by the Mississippi Independent.
According to Redfin, Louisiana has particularly high homeowner’s insurance costs, in part because of high flood and storm risk.
The average annual cost of homeowner’s insurance in Louisiana was $10,964 in 2024—higher than every state but Florida and up 38% from the year before, Redfin said.
“The high cost of homeowner’s insurance in Louisiana is limiting people’s ability to afford homes,” said Jason Gale, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in New Orleans. “A lot of homebuyers have backed out of deals because they couldn’t find insurance that fit their budget. It’s critical that buyers find lenders that understand the nuance of their market because you don’t want to end up in a situation where your lender quotes you $150 a month for insurance and the actual cost ends up being $500.”
The post Redfin Finds Climate-Risk Views Spike After Wildfires, Hurricanes first appeared on The MortgagePoint.
