Why the listing is the wrong place to look
A listing is written to sell. That is not a complaint; it is the job. But it means the facts that might cost the seller a sale are the ones least likely to be on the page. In November 2025 the biggest portal removed climate-risk scores from its listings after agents said the numbers were costing them deals, and the California MLS asked the other portals to do the same. The information did not stop being true. It stopped being shown.
Every fact below is public. None of them is on the listing. All of them can change what you offer.
Flood zone
FEMA publishes flood maps for nearly every address in the country. The zone letter is the fact: an X zone is minimal risk, an A or V zone means the lender will require flood insurance, which can run into thousands a year. Look up the address on FEMA’s Flood Map Service Center and note the map’s effective date; maps get redrawn. A vendor’s flood score is a model, not a zone. Two major flood models agree on a given home only about a fifth of the time, which is why Eave shows the official zone and links the models rather than quoting one as truth.
Fire severity
In fire states the state fire agency publishes hazard severity zones, and the zone determines your insurance options as much as your risk. Very High zones can mean a carrier will not write a policy at all. The state map is the source; the listing will say “mountain views.”
Seismic and soil
The USGS publishes fault proximity and seismic hazard; the county assessor or a soils survey covers expansive clay and liquefaction. Neither shows up in a walk-through. Both show up in the foundation ten years later.
Tax rate
The county publishes the rate, and the assessor publishes the last assessed value. What the seller pays is not what you will pay; a sale usually triggers a reassessment. Multiply the county rate by your likely purchase price and you have an estimate. It is an estimate, and Eave labels it as one.
School district
The district a home is zoned into is a matter of public record, and the district’s own site is the source. That is the whole fact. Nobody, and no tool, should be telling you a school or a neighbourhood is good, safe, or desirable. That is a decision, and it is yours. Why Eave will never rate a school.
Utilities and broadband
Which electric territory the house sits in decides your rates and your outage history. Whether the water is municipal or a well, and the sewer municipal or septic, decides a whole category of upkeep. The FCC’s broadband map shows which providers actually serve the address, which matters more than the listing’s “high-speed internet available.”
How to check all of it in one place
You can look each of these up by hand for every house you are considering. Or add the address to Eave for Buyers and get every fact on the card, each with the source it came from and the date it was published. Where a source has no value, Eave shows a dash, never a zero.
Start with the house you can’t stop thinking about. Eave for Buyers pulls these facts for every home you add, sourced and dated. Free for three homes, in any browser.
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