HouseKnow

Know the house
before you buy it.

Enter a U.S. address to see flood mapping, natural hazards, wildfire and earthquake exposure, nearby environmental records and other public information about a property.

Enter a full street address, including the city and state or the ZIP code. Checking is free.

Built from authoritative public data
  • EPA
  • FEMA
  • FHFA
  • U.S. Census Bureau
  • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
  • USDA Forest Service
  • USDA NRCS
  • USGS

What you actually get

A readable document, not a dashboard. Each finding says what the source reported, what it means, whether it describes the property or the wider area, and when we checked.

Sample report

1500 Sugar Bowl Dr, New Orleans, LA 70112

Orleans Parish, LA  ·  Generated from live federal data on September 10, 2026

Hurricane High

Very High for this area

FEMA rates hurricane risk in the census tract around this address as very high compared with the rest of the country.

Census tract Describes the census tract containing this address, not the individual property.
Recent declarations that reached households Elevated

3 in the last 10 years

FEMA opened Individual Assistance, the programme that pays households directly, 3 times in the past decade for Orleans Parish.

County Describes the whole county, not the individual property.
Inland flooding Elevated

Relatively High for this area

FEMA rates inland flooding risk in the census tract around this address as relatively high compared with the rest of the country.

Census tract Describes the census tract containing this address, not the individual property.

Plus 26 more findings, the checks that came back clear, and everything we could not determine. Open the full sample report.

What HouseKnow checks

Every report runs the same checks. Where a dataset does not cover a location, the report says so rather than leaving a gap or filling it in.

  • Flood The FEMA flood zone mapped at this location, what it means, and how current the map is.
  • Natural hazards How the area rates for hurricane, tornado, hail, heat, wind and other hazards.
  • Wildfire Wildfire exposure across the surrounding area.
  • Earthquake The seismic design category used by building codes here, and notable earthquakes nearby.
  • Environmental EPA-regulated sites near the property, what they are, and how far away.
  • Radon The EPA radon zone for this county, which describes area potential rather than this house.
  • Disaster history Federally declared disasters that covered this county.
  • Wetlands Wetlands mapped at or near the property by the National Wetlands Inventory.
  • Soil The mapped soil at this location and the drainage and movement characteristics that come with it.
  • Land and terrain Approximate elevation at the property.
  • Area context Housing and occupancy statistics for the surrounding census tract.
  • Market context Broad house price trends for the wider area. Not a valuation of this property.

Why this exists

A listing tells you the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the square footage, the photographs and the asking price. All of that describes the building. None of it describes where the building is.

The information that does describe the location is public, and most of it is free. It is also spread across a dozen federal systems, published in the vocabulary of the agency that collected it, and not written for a person deciding whether to make an offer. Finding a flood zone means knowing that FEMA has a map service and how to read Zone AE. Finding out whether there is a Superfund site nearby means knowing that the EPA has a facility registry.

HouseKnow does that work in one step and writes down what it found in ordinary words. It will not tell you whether to buy the house. It will tell you what is on the record before you spend another weekend, or several hundred dollars, finding out.

Where every number comes from

Every finding in a HouseKnow report carries its own provenance: the agency, the dataset, the value the source actually returned, and the date we retrieved it. You can open any finding and see all four.

It also carries something most consumer property tools leave out: whether the number describes the property or the area around it. A FEMA flood zone is read at the address. An EPA radon zone rates an entire county. Presenting those as though they were the same kind of fact would make the report look more precise than the data behind it, so HouseKnow labels every finding with the area it actually covers.

And when a source cannot answer, the report says that too. Unavailable is never reported as low risk.

Pricing

Checking an address and seeing what we found is free. You pay only for the full report.

1 property report
$20

One full report for the property you are looking at.

3 property reports
$45
Save $15

Three reports, used whenever you like. Useful if you are still comparing houses.

No subscription. Nothing renews. Reports stay available at their own link.

Questions

What is HouseKnow?
HouseKnow looks up public information about a specific U.S. address and explains it in plain English. It checks flood mapping, natural hazard ratings, wildfire and earthquake exposure, nearby environmental records, radon potential, wetlands, soil, elevation and area statistics, then tells you what each result means and where it came from.
Where does the information come from?
From federal government datasets, published by agencies including FEMA, the EPA, the USGS, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the USDA. Every source is listed, with what it covers and what it does not. HouseKnow is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any of them.
Is HouseKnow a home inspection?
No. A home inspector walks the property and looks at the roof, the wiring, the plumbing and the structure. HouseKnow never visits. It tells you what public records say about the location, which is a different question and a useful one to answer before you pay for an inspection.
Is this a title search?
No. HouseKnow does not report ownership, deeds, liens, mortgages or easements. Those records are held county by county and there is no reliable nationwide source for them, so promising them everywhere would mean guessing somewhere.
How current is the information?
Every finding in a report shows the date we retrieved it, and several show the vintage of the underlying data as well. That matters more than it sounds: a FEMA flood map for a given area may have taken effect years ago, and the report tells you when.
Does HouseKnow work everywhere in the U.S.?
Address lookup covers the 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico and the U.S. island areas. Individual datasets do not all cover everywhere: FEMA has not mapped flood hazard for every county, and the National Risk Index is not published for the territories. Where a source has no coverage, the report says so.
What happens if a source has no coverage?
It is reported as unavailable, and never as low risk. That distinction is the single most important rule in the product. "FEMA has not mapped this area" and "FEMA has mapped this area as minimal hazard" look similar in the raw data and mean opposite things, so HouseKnow keeps them apart everywhere.

Check a property

Enter the address. We will confirm the property, run the checks, and show you what we found before you decide whether to buy the report.

Enter a full street address, including the city and state or the ZIP code. Checking is free.