Buying a house? The real-estate industry is sounding the alarm about an increasingly expensive risk.

In his 13 years as a real-estate agent, Scott Goshorn has never seen a home-insurance market this difficult.

When he was helping sell an $8 million house in the Westlake section of Los Angeles, Goshorn got quotes from insurance companies so he could give prospective buyers an idea of their potential insurance costs.

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He was told that wildfire coverage on the property would cost $140,000 a year. A few years earlier, the cost probably would have been $20,000 or less, he said.

“Selling a home in a fire zone is very difficult,” Goshorn told MarketWatch. “The crazy insurance is now a deal killer.”

The home’s eventual buyer ended up getting a policy that cost a relatively reasonable $60,000 a year by working with an insurance provider that had insured other homes he had owned.

Others haven’t been so lucky.

Across the U.S., skyrocketing insurance costs are weighing on the housing market. Buyers and homeowners can’t find sufficient insurance coverage.

Insurance challenges are having such a profound effect on the housing market that real-estate companies that pioneered the industry’s shift to the digital arena are making changes to how they do business.

Companies like Zillow Z — known for its online listings and its proprietary home-valuation algorithm, dubbed the Zestimate — and real-estate brokerage Redfin RDFN have rolled out new tools to outline the risks of buying properties in disaster-prone areas.

These companies have started telling buyers up front how much risk a home faces from things such as flooding, wildfires and poor air quality. The data is collected by First Street, a company that analyzes climate change and financial risk.

Buying a house is getting harder

The spotlight on climate risks comes at a time when U.S. home buyers are already weary of a market that’s expensive and crowded, with little inventory.

Home insurance — both the cost and the availability — has begun tripping up some home buyers. Buyers are finding it so hard to get insurance that in some cases it jeopardizes their entire home purchase. In most cases, buyers are required to have insurance coverage if they’re taking out a mortgage to finance the purchase.