NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast - AI in the Home Buying Process: What Works, What Doesn't, and When to Call an Expert

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Find out how AI tools can help navigate the home buying process and where human expertise still matters most. Can AI help you buy a house with reliable information? What would you do if you had only ten years to live, received a $100,000 windfall, or lost your job with just one month of emergency savings? Sean Pyles, CFP®, and Elizabeth Ayoola sit down with a NerdWallet colleague to unpack his journey using AI to buy a home. But first, they take turns putting each other through a series of hypothetical — and sometimes grim — financial scenarios, revealing how they'd really handle everything from lending money to a struggling family member to deciding between a millionaire's Camry and a thousandaire's Mercedes. Then, NerdWallet’s podcast strategist Cody Gough joins Sean and Elizabeth in-studio to share his experience using Claude AI to help him make homebuying decisions. He shares how he used AI to figure out his financing options, find and evaluate agents, work through mortgage applications, and even assess whether specific neighborhoods were the right fit for his family. NerdWallet mortgage writer Kate Wood joins virtually to offer an expert reality check on Cody's experience — weighing in on his financing choices, what the AI got right and wrong about contingent offers in a competitive market, and where tools like NerdWallet's calculators and articles would have served him better than an AI chatbot.  2026 Home Buyer Report – 48% of Prospective Buyers Will Use AI: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/studies/home-buyer-report  Compare Today’s Mortgage Rates: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/mortgage-rates  See how far your homebuying budget could take you with NerdWallet’s free home affordability calculator: https://www.nerdwallet.com/mortgages/calculators/how-much-house-can-i-afford  Want us to review your budget? Fill out this form — completely anonymously if you want — and we might feature your budget in a future segment! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScK53yAufsc4v5UpghhVfxtk2MoyooHzlSIRBnRxUPl3hKBig/viewform?usp=header To send the Nerds your money questions, call or text the Nerd hotline at 901-730-6373 or email [e-mail]. Like what you hear? Please leave us a review and tell a friend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Need a vehicle that isn't afraid to make a splash? That's the Volkswagen Taos. Capable and confident, the Volkswagen Taos is fit for everyday life. Nimble in traffic, agile and tight spots, and still spacious enough for weekend getaways. While available 4-motion all-wheel drive gives confidence in rain and snow. The capable Taos, you deserve more confidence. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SuvW, German engineered for all.

This episode is brought to you by Tellus Online Security. Oh, tax season is the worst. You mean hack season? Sorry, what? Yeah, cybercriminals love tax forms. But I've got Tellus Online Security. It helps protect against identity theft and financial fraud so I can stress less during tax season or any season.

Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. Life is all about decisions, and we are all about financial decisions. So this episode, we're going to see what each of us would do in different scenarios. Welcome to NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions, and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I am Elizabeth Ayola.

And I'm Sean Piles. This episode, we're going to discuss how AI might be able to help you in the home buying process or not. But before that, we are bringing you live from Scottsdale, a fun segment. where me and Sean ask each other what we would do in some bizarre, some not so bizarre financial scenarios. All situations that could actually happen because life is bizarre. Well, some of them I hope they happen, especially with the one where I meant win like $100,000 or something. Don't spoil anything. Some of them I hope really don't happen because Elizabeth was getting grim with her scenarios. Yeah, I just wanted to put you in a tough spot, Sean. I do love you though. Thank you. Well, let's do it.

Okay, let's start. Okay, Sean, I love asking people. this question. If you had a decade to live, how would you spend your money? Well, first of all, I really hope I have more than 10 years to live. Me too. I'm hoping for about 110 more. As we know, I want to live forever. Here we go. But if I only had 10 years to live, I would spend my money on things that brought fulfillment to my life, fulfillment to the life of those that I love, and hopefully the world around me, I'm going to be doing some traveling. I'm going to be spending a lot of money on my garden. I might do some really irresponsible things like rack up a whole bunch of debt I have no intention of paying off.

Because who cares? If you have 10 years left to live, I do that towards the end. That's my final year. I'm going to go ham and just be totally reckless because YOLO. Oh my God. I've never thought about that. What if when I am on my deathbed or let's say heaven's forbid I get terminal illness, what if I just, you know, max out my credit card?

I've never done that before. The money you owe will be taken from the value of your estate because creditors are first in line when you die. So just know that, but, you know, we can figure these things out later. And this is not financial advice, people. What if I hide my money in an estate? We're going to call up some lawyers and figure this out. Okay, sorry, I derailed your answer.

Okay, so I have one follow-up based on that, Sean. Would you be living your life aside from the credit card debt any differently than what you're doing now? Yeah, I wouldn't be working. Love you. But I think I would really try to spend my time in ways that bring as much value as I can, while also realizing sometimes you just got a rotten bet even if you only have 10 years left to live. We love a good bet rot. And I'm bed rot and whether I got one year, 10, 100.

We're doing that at least once a month, okay? It's your life well spent, right? That's right. Okay. So that's what I would do. Now, I'm going to turn to my scenarios for you. Mine are really, would you rather, because I love this kind of question. So, Elizabeth, would you rather receive a $100,000 windfall one time or a $5,000 windfall every year for the rest of your life?

I feel like this question is really going to, or the way I answer it, is really going to embody my values. And I'm taking the 100K. I'm taking the 100K because tomorrow is not promised. I don't know if I'm going to live, you know, five years, 10 years, as I put in your scenarios, or 80 years. I would take the 100K now and I would do what I could with it now. Do you want to know what I would do with my 100K? Please, yes. Hmm, if I got 100K right now, I'm taking myself.

on a lavish trip to somewhere on my bucket list, very likely Japan, as I've mentioned to you before, or Thailand. Or I've been wanting to do an Africa tour, actually. So I've been wanting to go to the safaris in Kenya, South Africa. You have a good point, because why am I having a scarcity mindset? I have 100K. So maybe I have multiple vacations. Of course, I'd like to retire early.

Some is going towards my fire goal. I'm going to give some away. And I'm going to buy myself something nice to, like a new bracelet. But yeah, saving and spending. Yeah, that's the smart decision because if you think about it, $5,000 today is not going to be worth a whole lot 50 years from now. No. 100K, you could invest a good chunk of that, have it growing over time, also enjoy some now. So I agree with that decision.

Thank you. Which one should I give you next, Sean? Give me a hard one. Okay. You lose your job. Knocking on wood here. You're not losing your job, Sean. But in this scenario, you lose your job.

You have one month of emergency savings only. $10,000 in high interest credit card debt. Let's say the interest rate is like 27%. Okay? And you have a mortgage. What is your next move? Before I have a panic attack, I'm going to try to calm myself down and realize that there are paths forward when things even seem really dire like that.

But I'm going to try to cut my expenses as much as I can. And so for things like my credit card debt, I'm going to call up my creditor and say, hey, I'm in a really tough situation. I just lost my job. Can I go on a hardship program? Can you cut my interest rate for a period of time? Can I cut my monthly payment? what options do I have? Same for my mortgage. See what you can do to minimize your expenses so that you

can actually hold on to as much liquid cash as you can because you need that to cover certain expenses, right? So try to get through what you can with the resources you have and also reach out to your network immediately and try to find another job. That's what I'm going to do. And just try to grit and bear it, I guess. That is very clever. And it sounds like a financial advisor wrote that. Do you think Do you think a CFP, you know? I didn't write it. I just thought it up on the spot. I could see your knowledge shining there.

But yeah, those are all great things to do. I love especially the first point of calling all your creditors and letting know your situation so that hopefully you can get some grace there. Even your utility companies. You might be able to get a cut on your gas bill or your water bill, maybe even your internet. You don't know unless you call. That's right. I do have to ask though because you said you tried to cut down on spending money on silly things.

What are one of the first silly things that you are going to cut out of your budget? This isn't silly because I take it seriously and I cherish it. But I go out to eat a lot with my friends. It's like our main social thing. And it gets expensive, but we love doing it. We have a great time together. I could save a lot of money each month if I wasn't doing that every week or multiple times a week. Oh, no.

But then what would you replace that with because it brings you joy? I'll have my friends come over. We'll do a little potluck maybe. The weather's getting nice. So we'll just go for a walk in a park in Portland because it's so beautiful there. Wow. You make losing your job and going into debt sounds so romantic. Take. Okay, so you're up next. I have another, would you rather, would you rather be a millionaire

driving a Camry or a thousandaire driving a Mercedes? That's easy. A millionaire driving a Camry. And, you know, I've done driven some very rick-dicky cars. Well, I've only driven two, really. I've only ever had two cars in my life. My first one, I think I've told you it used to shake when I was driving on the highway, just shaking out of control. But kind of scary. Yeah. It got me from point A to B. And my former stepmom sold it to me for $2,000. So I bought it cash. I did not have a car note. That was great.

And then, you know, I had a little lifestyle creep. I got a better job. Yeah. And I thought, hey, maybe it's time to get a better car. So I got a Honda. Still not a super luxury car, but it's luxury enough for where I was slash am. But anyway, all that said, I do not feel like even if I was a millionaire like I necessarily need to have a luxury car.

So I'd rather have all that money in the bank, be able to spend it on what I want to spend it on or invested and drive the Camry. I don't need to wear my money, is what I'm saying. And well, here's what I'm thinking, too. You mentioned in the past how you use your car as your wallet. So even though you're driving a Camry, it's kind of like you're driving a Mercedes because you have a million dollars in there. Exactly, Sean.

See, this is why you're my person. I got you. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. So let's see what scenario I have for you. This is a good one. So a close family member is about to lose their home if they don't pay

their mortgage and they ask you for help. Now, they're behind $5,000. You have enough. You're doing well financially. You have enough saved in your emergency fund. Let's say you have double or triple that amount. So 15K put aside and everything is in order for you. What do you say? Are you going to lend them the $5,000? How much do I trust this family member? Okay. There are so many other questions I have because it really is such an individual person-by-person situation, where if I really know this family member, I know that they just had a hard time recently and they're not going to be able to pay me back for maybe six months to a year,

but they're going to get back on their feet, I probably would. But if it's someone I know who's had just years and years of financial mismanagement, I don't really trust them long term, I might try to help them out in some way, but I also don't want to perpetuate bad behaviors, nor do I want them to lose their house. So I would probably help them explore other options. Can they go on a hardship plan with their mortgage way?

What can they do besides just get my liquid cash that they maybe wouldn't use in the most responsible way? Or if I gave them money, it would come with some strings attached, which gets complicated because I would probably want to say, hey, if I'm giving you this, we need to work out a plan to get you back on your feet. And if I don't see that you're doing these things, then we're going to have some problems. But that can create a lot of interpersonal conflict, which I don't want. It can. Do you agree with the approach of having maybe like a written agreement

or a contract where they agree that they're going to pay you back, something legally binding in place? Yeah, if it would be legally binding, sure, but sometimes these agreements are worth as much as the paper that they're on because a lot of people don't end up honoring them anyway. I wouldn't want it to come down to that. I think it would be nice to have almost more for the person who I'm giving the money to, so they might feel some sense of obligation because of it. I'm not going to take them to small claims court because they don't have any. money anyway. Oh, man, you brought up a good point. They ain't got no money anyway. Well, Sean, okay, so I get your POV. Basically, it depends on their financial situation and how trustworthy they are on if you're going to borrow their money and how much. I'd love to help them. I want to make sure

it's not going to just kick the can down the road. Yeah, I know a lot of people struggle with that, so I definitely wanted to put that scenario out there. Well, I have a similar question for you, actually. Would you rather ask your friends for money or take out a loan that has an interest rate of 30% and let's say we're talking about $10,000. That's a tough one because I am someone who struggles to ask for help. I cannot remember the last time I've asked someone to borrow money. However, 30% is crazy. Yeah, that's like a payday loan.

That'd be a good payday loan, actually. And I ain't too proud to beg, okay? So I'm going to ask my loved ones, to your point, I am a trustworthy person. I'm not someone who asks often. I'm perceived as generally responsible. know that someone would be happy, hopefully, to help me. And I hate owing people money. So I would pay it back as soon as possible. But I'm going to ask. Yeah. A lot of these interpersonal lending questions come down to goodwill and trust. And can you be relied on? Do you actually have the capital

or will you have it soon? How well do I know you? All these different things. Yeah. And that reminds me, actually, I had someone ask me not so long ago. They were about to, yeah, lose their home. And they came. But I didn't know them that well and asked me if I could loan them a car. couple of thousands of dollars. And this was actually a very interesting scenario because they helped me to find a apartment at one point. So they knew my financial situation. So it almost made me feel like, do you know that I could potentially afford to give it to you? And that's why you're asking me. But the trust wasn't there because we didn't have that type of relationship. So unfortunately, you know, I wasn't able to help. How did you say no and do you think it affected your relationship?

I was honest. I said, you know, at the time, I was in private school as well. And my philosophy is I don't borrow what I can't afford not to get back and I can't afford not to get back a couple thousand dollars. I really like that. So you're you're not willing to give out any money that you just wouldn't be able to get by if you and have that. That's right. That's right. So I pretend it's a gift in my mind. If I get it back, great. But then I'm not going to be like crying in the corner if I don't get it back because I already put my mind that I mean, I'll get this money up. And that's so smart because yes, you want to help your friends. You want to help people in your community. At the end of the day, you got to make sure that you are in good shape. That's right. So I just

basically told him it's not something I could afford at the moment. And you know, we're still cool. So it didn't negatively impact the friendship. My last one for you, Sean, you are one year away from retirement. Sounds good. All right. I'm ready for it. I have learned recently that you would like to retire at the age of 51. So you're 50 years old.

You got all your accounts in order. You've saved your money. And then the stock market crashes. What are you going to do? I'm going to talk with my financial advisor and see how this is going to change my forecast long term. Because sometimes if you have a big crash before retirement, you actually might want to extend your working years a little longer for things to recover. It depends on how much I have in the bank. I would love to continue my plan to retire, but I'm not going to sacrifice my long-term retirement for an

immediate gain of just retiring the year that I want to, which is admittedly a little arbitrary. Let's say you've already quit your job because you're retiring next year and maybe you just said, hey, I'm throwing in this house a year earlier. What career are you going to go back into at 50? Whatever makes me the most money? For the least amount of work. Yeah. At that point, it's all about the Benjamin's baby. Yes. Okay. Well, my final question for you, and I think I know the answer to this one, would you rather leave an inheritance to your loved ones or spend all of your money before you die? I have to leave something to my baby. I love him so much. And I would, why am I getting emotional? I would hate, oh, why am I so softy to leave him with nothing? Because he's your baby, of course.

I would absolutely leave him with something. Yeah. Well, you are at 529? You're doing great. Thank you. Didn't mean to make you cry, Elizabeth, and so sorry. Soppy, thank you. You're going to make me cry. Okay, okay. Let's bring it back up. Okay. So yes, I'm leaving my baby some money, but I'm also going to be balling out because I have worked hard for so many years and saved and I'm going to enjoy my money, at least most of it. Ball out with your baby. Go on some trips. That's right. All right. I did not expect to be getting all soppy there, Sean. But we're going to move along now and we are going to be discussing whether it makes sense to use AI for the home buying process or a real person. Or maybe you can use. both. But first listeners, you know what's up. This is a show that runs on your money questions, on your financial decisions. So send your money questions our way. Hit us up on the Nerd Hotline.

You can text us or leave us a voicemail at 901-730-6373. It's 901-730 Nerd. You can also email us at podcast atnervaal.com or leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. We're back in a minute. Stay with us. Whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes.

Save the everyday with Amazon. There's something else here now. Something new. From, exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. We're back in answering your money questions. Today, we're going to be talking about the use of AI versus a real person in the home buying process. Now, we wanted today's episode to be a little bit more interactive. So we have our data expert on smart money, Cody Goff here to talk through his use of AI while buying his home. And we're recording live in our studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Cody.

And we're also joined via the internet on a laptop here by NerdWallet Mortgage writer Kate Wood. So you'll see us looking at this laptop if you are viewing us. on YouTube. So welcome to Smart Money, Cody. Thank you, Elizabeth. And welcome, Kate. Thanks for all hanging out without me. We'll get you here next time, Kate. Yeah. So, Cody, you use the chat tool, AI chat tool, Claude in your home buying journey, or you're still using because you haven't totally sorted everything out yet. And had you used Claude before? What was your relationship to it? I used Cald literally all the time. Yeah. Like literally for work, for personal projects. It's everything. Okay. And what about Claude makes it your go-to-a-toe tool versus, you know,

Chat GPD or Gemini or any other option that you have. I've used all three. I started on chat GPT. I tried Gemini. I'm not going to say it told me exactly what I wanted to hear. As they often do, let's say that. Right. It wasn't because I was sick of fan.

It just broke things down in a way that the information was digestible. I feel like sometimes with chat GPT, it just gives you a laundry list of information. And Claude really would just be like, yeah, here's what's actually happening. Here's what you should pay attention to in its answers. So I just found it. You're a fan of the syntax. A fan of the syntax. And then also you hear a lot about the other capabilities, which we won't get into, but there's some other cool capabilities.

I've not used Claude, but I've heard amazing things and that it is easier to have a full conversation with it. Elizabeth, Kate, have either of you used Claude? I have not used Claude specifically. I have, thanks to a newsletter that I subscribe to, and I find, based on my research, that Claude is a little bit more ethical than chat QBTs. So that is why I switch over to Claude. So I have used it before. So today we're going to go through some of the prompts you, Cody, use during your home buying process and kind of weigh out the pros and cons of using generative AI during the home buying process. I also want to add for context that Cody is doing a unique thing.

Well, maybe it's not that unique, but unique to me. He is trying to sell his home and also buy another home. So he's using generative AI for that entire process. Now, Kate, what are your thoughts on using generative AI for the home buying process, whether you're selling or buying? I'm not a massive fan of AI for anything. Like, I'm the opposite of an AI evangelist. I'm wary of it for all of the reasons. And at this point, pretty much accepted as a necessary evil.

But I feel like, you know, with the home buying process, as with anything, to what extent AI is helpful is going to depend on, you know, how you use it, right? Are you just, you know, asking it questions and accepting what it tells you at face value? Like, that's a great idea. Probably not great, right? But if you're using it as a resource rather than a source of truth, like, yeah, absolutely. There are parts of the process that it'll spoo that. out and probably make faster.

Yeah, I'm with you. All right, so let's jump into your prompts, Cody. Can you start by telling us what part of your home buying slash selling process that you did use Claude for? Yeah, so to start, I didn't know where to start, and that was the thing. I bought a home before, but that was pretty clear cut. I had money to make a down payment, and then I would buy the house, right? This time it's different because I want to move to the Rockford area in Illinois.

It's one of the hottest markets in the country. weirdly, even though it's where I grew up, so that's weird to say. But like, there's low inventory, and I'm very picky. So it's going to take me a really long time to find a house I want. But if I put out my house now to sell it, and then it sells, then I'm in a lot of trouble because I have two kids and you need somewhere to live. I need somewhere to live, right? So I just didn't know the order of operations. And we're like, what are my options? You know, I have a limited amount for a down payment. When do I get a buyer's agent? When do I get a seller's agent? What are my financing options. And so at the beginning, I gave Claude kind of all of my financial information. And it was

really helpful in being like, okay, here are your options. You know, you could make a contingent offer. You could get a bridge loan. You could make the initial down payment and then recast your mortgage, which was something I'd never even heard of before. So that kind of helped me understand the order of operations for things. Okay. And Kate, how do you think Cody did so far in terms of understanding the beginning steps of selling and buying. And what are your thoughts about him not going to a website called nerdwollot.com for that interview. Yeah, I mean, so it is fun how you, you know, seem to feel about my literal job.

But yeah, like, you absolutely could have found all of this information on the website of the company that you work for, just putting it out there. That said, you know, buying and selling at the same time is a situation that, you know, plenty of people wind up in because unless you're hanging on to that first, home keeping it as an investment property, you're probably going to be in the position of, okay, I need to like sell one home. I need to get another one. And honestly, even in a slow market, that's a lot to deal with. There's a lot of different pieces going on, a lot of moving parts. And so in a hotter market, like where Cody is, you know, honestly, the fact that Claude's even like,

you can make a contingent offer, it's kind of like, could you? That said, I think it's interesting, you know, I'm sure we'll get into this later that, you know, Claude was coming back with, okay, here are some of the other options you could do just because it is difficult to make that timing work when you do need a place to live. And particularly, you know, you've got kids. It's not easy to just be like, oh, well, you know, we'll stay somewhere for a couple weeks. Kate, your note about contingent offers is really interesting because it seems like that's maybe a hole in the information that Cody got. You were told that you could have a contingent offer. But what I'm hearing is that that can be market specific.

It's not so much that it's market specific, but that. So in, you, you know, know, I'm not personally familiar with Rockford, but based on, you know, what I've read in these chats and what Cody is describing, this is a market where buyers don't have a ton of leverage and sellers are, you know, if someone's listing their home, they're here to sell. In general, kind of across the U.S., because we have seen, you know, really since the pandemic, such a trend toward all cash buyers coming into the market, in general, very well-heeled buyers in the market. having a sale contingency is just not what it used to be. So a sale contingency is basically you've made an offer on the house and one of the conditions, the contingencies of your offer is, okay, I need to sell my current home in order for this offer to go through, generally because you need the money from that home sale to buy this next house that you're moving into. That's like a super normal thing to need and at most other times in real estate history would be no big deal. These days,

having that contingency on there can potentially be something that a seller's just going to be like, yeah, I don't want to deal with that, particularly, again, in a hot market where sellers have a lot more leverage than buyers do. So kind of given what Cody was describing about his market, that sale contingency feels like, you know, if there's a way around it, if you have the means to avoid it, you might kind of want to avoid it. I did use nerd wallet for a lot of this. But genuinely, once I understood a couple of the steps in the process, like, where am I going to go to compare mortgage lenders that offer the best interest rates? I don't want this to sound like a nerd wallet commercial, but like it was a no-brainer. I went to nerd wallet, right? Like, I went to the mortgage lenders. I put in, you know, how much I was wanting

to borrow, you know, all the numbers and everything. And like, I trust nerd wallet to give me that. Like, I wouldn't have told that to Claude. And then I'm like, which lenders do you think? think and then just trusted what it said because I just don't think AI has that level of trust yet. And that is a difference, right? Comparing buying and selling agents was something that it did a really good job of doing. And that's something that's really individual and specific. So I said, you know, I'm looking for houses in this range, help me find a buyer's agent in Rockford who has a record of having bought a bunch of homes like this, right, and works in that area.

And then it actually gave me, Claude gave me a couple third-party websites. So I went to that site. I did ask Cloud to help me kind of crunch the data a little bit. So there was a step in there. But again, I didn't just say, hey, Claude, who's the best buying agent in Rockford? It didn't have that kind of objective up-to-date data.

That was really helpful. Filling out mortgage applications online was really helpful because I got to the point where it's like, list all your assets. And I'm like, great. This is like a 14-hour project, right? So you had Claude fill out applications for you. I did not have it fill it out, but I would screenshot it and I would say, it's asking me this, what do I do?

Okay. And it would say, you know, at this early point in the process, you don't need a line item of every single asset you own. It just basically wants maybe if you get a gift for it or maybe like the sale of your home, like two or three things do that. And so it's simplified. And it was just like, what do you need to do or not need to do? I will say, again, not so helpful. As Kate mentioned, it did caveat that the contingent offer was not great. But it didn't weigh it as heavily as like you would or like an expert would.

It said, you know, pros of a contingent offer, XYZ, cons of a contingent offer. Well, maybe not as competitive. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. It's a big con. Yeah, it's underselling the con like quite a bit. So I will say, and also it really heavily recommended the bridge loan based on what I read on Nerdwollet. I contacted the two mortgage lenders and I explained my situation. Both of them immediately were like, yeah, just recast your mortgage. Like we offer that. It'll cost you a couple hundred bucks, but like, that's the obvious route here. So I will say it wasn't so helpful in financing. And then the other thing was when I was asking it at first about buying and selling agents, it really wanted me to get referrals from either the selling agent I choose or the buying agent who helped me find our. home in the Chicago suburbs. And I'm like, no. First of all, I'm moving 75 miles west. So this is,

like an hour drive. The chances that one of those agents is going to know somebody in the Rockford area are slam. I barely know my seller's agent. I don't know if I can trust them to find somebody that is looking for what I want, right? And they get a commission for that is what I was told by Claude. So I'm like, they have all the incentive to give me somebody very subpar. I want to do this research on my own. So that was, I think, some questionable advice that God gave. To me, that almost seems like Claude was regurgitating information at read in a blog somewhere. But that said, it seems like you got a lot of value out of having your personal information in Claude and being able to have it analyze that. How helpful was that versus, you know, obviously you wouldn't have

that accessible in an article that you're reading. And that's why I turn into Cloud first with the order of operation thing, because I wouldn't know how to search. Like, you know, I could, I could Google, like, what do I do if I'm buying a home, but I need to buy it, kind of find a house before I sell the house? Like, I just don't know what queries I would have put in exactly. And again, I think that all best information you could find is under wallet. But where is that packaged? And how many articles do I have to go through to kind of find my exact situation? That's where I think was helpful, where I could really give it my very specific details, have it give me some guidance.

and then use my own critical thinking. Don't just do what it does. Like, you don't just do what AI tells you to do. You have to take it with a grain of salt and think critically and ask it to clarify and say, like, are you sure? And then go to actual resources. Yeah. Like Nord Wallet that are, like, thoroughly researched so they can, you know, tell you what to actually do. Yeah.

This gets just the messy thought process that we're all kind of going through and making complicated financial decisions and how Claude and other AI tools are good at helping you kind of parse these things out one step at a time where if you're just putting things in Google, can just get confusing and you have 12,000 tabs open and you don't know what's where. So Kate, Cody has said that Claude was helpful in helping him find a listing agent and also fill out those mortgage applications, which I would think are very time-consuming things to do. So what are your thoughts on him using AI in those ways and him finding, I guess, those to be pros? So I thought it was really interesting, like the mortgage applications example, because that's something where I personally would be wary simply because AI is not often the best when it

comes to numbers or take this number from here, move it over here. But when you describe the sort of screenshot process, I thought there was a really interesting use. Something that I really enjoyed as well and that I thought was a smart use of AI that you described was having it work on your correspondence with agents and kind of things you were telling them helping you get the tone right. That's definitely something I use AI for. And I thought that that was really smart since, you know, this is a professional relationship. And even if, you know, in the example of like the buyer's agent that you used to buy your current home, like, yeah, you know the person, but like they're not super close to you. And so kind of like helping you navigate that relationship, I didn't think was really smart.

The referrals thing, again, like a little, a little weird feels like it was kind of maybe reading blogs by real estate agents or something like that. Because, yeah, like you said, I mean, if you're moving an hour plus away, like, sure, they might know someone who works out there, but it might be one person. The other thing is that, you know, any real estate agent is going to be heavily incentivized to refer you to someone who works for the same brokerage or at least for the same company as them, right? So whichever company that you're working with, they're probably going to refer you to someone else who works with the same company.

So, like, yeah, that advice was definitely a little, like, oh, to me. Okay, well, now we've looked at the things that Claude has been helpful with. And I know Cody touched on a little bit where Claude wasn't so helpful in terms of the cons, in terms of it recommending a bridge loan over a mortgage recast. So before we have you talk about that, Kate, as the housing expert, can you talk briefly about, you know, the differences between a mortgage recast and also a bridge loan? So Claude was giving you a couple of options that people use when they are buying a home and selling a home at the same time. And essentially, they need the money from the sale of the first home to buy the second home.

But that home's not sold yet, right? So we need to figure out a way around that. Bridge loan is a short-term second loan that you take out in order to buy home to. And then you basically pay off the bridge loan with the proceeds from home number one. That sounds easy and it's relatively easy, except for the whole part where you're taking out a whole additional mortgage-level loan, right? That's also a relatively short-term loan, paying that, keeping that until, you know, you get that other home sold and then you pay off the bridge loan. So there's kind of a lot of logistics to it and you really need to be quite confident about selling that first home. The idea with a mortgage recast is that again, so we're buying home two before we sell home number one.

And with home number two, we're just going to kind of take what we can get on this mortgage, right? Because we have a significant debt load. We might not have a ton for a down payment. But then once home number one sells, you're taking a chunk of those proceeds and you're using it to recast the mortgage on home number two. So here's what a recast actually means. So it's not a refinance. It is still the same loan. You're not changing the term. You're not changing the mortgage rate. What you're doing is giving the lender a big chunk of money. And so if you're like, why have I never heard of a recast, it's the part where you need to give the lender a big chunk of money. This is why this is not something people are just,

you know, doing whenever. Usually the bare minimum for a recast, you need to give them like 10 grand toward your loan's balance and you're giving them that as a lump sum. So the lender then reamortizes the loan using that new lower balance. So even though you're not changing the mortgage interest rate, you're not changing the term, you're going to end up paying less because now you've lowered the principal that much. So there's not a separate loan. And then the other, you know, big perk, which I think Cody already mentioned is that the feeder recast is usually like a couple hundred dollars. So, you know, if you work with a lender who's like, yeah, I'll recast the mortgage, this is something that's pretty doable. But again, not something that a lot of people necessarily know about or have heard of.

In AI's defense, part of this may have been user error because when I gave it my finances, I don't think I did make it clear that I had the funds for the down payment I would need for the house we're looking for. Some family is able to lend me money for that in the form of a gift that I can then pay back. AI didn't have that information. So in fairness to AI, I think it's still valid to say like AI isn't perfect, but I think part of why it isn't perfect is because it is hard to use right in certain ways. Like, you do, as a user, really need to know all the information that you're going to give it to help it make an informed decision for what to give you.

So I will take some of the blame for what maybe could have been a little more clearer. But I think that's such an important point because sometimes people use AI again as the end all, but you still need to do your own research so that you have something to feed it so that it can give you correct answers, right? So I don't think that you should bypass nerd wallet or other resources. I mean, it could only answer the question as well as you ask the question, right? And sometimes, you know, if it's like buying and selling a home, normal people don't, you know, do this constantly. So it's not like, oh, shame. Like, you didn't know what a mortgage recast was. I'm like, I'm probably the one of the only people I know in my personal life who knows what a mortgage recast is. It's not a normal thing to know about. And that's totally fine. We've talked about what got you started in this whole buying selling process. Where are you now? And are you still using AI to help you along? I am still using AI. I've asked it to be a sounding board, I guess, in terms of like, what are my values? How old are my kids? What do I do with my kids? And Claude has kind of helped me think through it.

Like, I'll give it a specific house. I'll give it the Google Maps screenshot. I'll tell it what's nearby and I'll say, you know, what do you think? And it will say something to me like one time it said, are you walking as a functional thing? Or are you walking as a recreational thing? You don't need to be able to walk to the grocery store, right? Maybe if you're just surrounded by forests, that's the right call for you. And then also thinking ahead to when my kids get older, which as a dad is not a thing I ever want to think about.

I can relate. My daughter's three and I don't ever want her to change that, but she will, right? So like, where are they going to want to walk or where are they going to want to get to? Are they going to ride bikes and what's going to be bikeable? And then also it gave me some tips for just like, how do you know if there are kids in the neighborhood? Because right now we have a couple families on our street, but like not many. It's a lot of people whose driveways wind behind their house. And I have not seen my neighbor.

Literally, six years I've lived there. I've seen my neighbor across the street one time. I've seen the person that lives next to them zero times. I don't know who they are. And it's like, you know, Claude says things like, look for bikes, like in people's lawns or whatever, like certain toys or playgrounds. Some of it might sound obvious, but there's little things that you can kind of do to assess a neighborhoods kind of feel a little bit. Also, I get the feeling that you are a heavy-duty planner. you like to really think things through to an extreme degree.

And hearing this, I'm like, let's just wing it sometimes. You never know, right, when you move to a new place or city or, you know, I can move into a place. And three days later, the neighbors come home from vacation and they have 14 dogs barking and they never shut up. Like, there are houses that I've literally eliminated from my search because I'd pull in, we'd walk up and there's like four pit bulls in the bay window next door barking from the time we pull up to the time we leave. And I'm like, I'm not spending the next 30 years dealing with that, you know? Yeah. I know I did not put as much research in when I was looking for a new place to live. But I'm just thinking about how many hours it takes to figure out stuff like that looking in Reddit,

Cora for those who use Cora, blog posts, TikTok, just to figure out all these things. And it sounds like, again, you've been able to save a lot of time by using Codd for that purpose too. Maybe. And I do not let it look at listings for me. Like, that's just pointless. If I say, here's my criteria, find me some houses? No. Also, that's the most fun part is looking at all the listings.

That is fun. Kate, can you speak to it not being good at finding listings? I know some people sometimes have issues with broken links, for example. Actually, I was talking to a colleague of mine about this who had that exact experience with Claude where, you know, she was trying to say, okay, I want it to be, you know, I want this many bedrooms about this price, you know, these neighborhoods in L.A. and it was like, oh, here's this like, you know, lengthy, like a search link, a search looking link in Zillow where it's like, oh, like three bedrooms and this zip code and links are all broken. One of the only working links is to a home in Arkansas. So, you know, yeah, like not the best with this. And like Sean said, just browsing, you know, just browsing listings is kind of recreational.

All right, Kate. So we have highlighted, thanks to Cody, some areas where AI can be helpful and areas where areas where. it can be not so helpful. So for all of the listeners out there or anybody who is thinking about using AI for the home buying process, based on the many steps that it takes to buy or sell a house, where would you say it could be most helpful and where should people take more caution? I do think the idea that Cody was using of saying, okay, look at this house and tell me what you think of it in terms of what's important to me is a pretty smart one because you can go on a real estate search website and say, okay, I want, you know, this many bedrooms and I want built

after this year and whatever. But if you've got things that, like, are important to you, like, you're like, I want a town that has at least one independent bookstore and I want a sushi place that delivers and I want hiking trails that are no more than a 20-minute drive. It's not finding you specific houses, but it's going to tell you like, okay, this town or this neighborhood could work for you based on these things you like. Or, you know, well, it's got two out of three. Can we negotiate here? So I do think that kind of more personalized, like searching on the metrics that you indexed on. is a really interesting use of AI and something where it could be really helpful in your home search. And so Kate, what about where you wouldn't use AI in the home buying and selling process?

Anything number related I'd be a little hesitant with. I tried comparing ChatGBTGBT to our home affordability calculator the other week, just because I was curious. But in the end, GBT was telling me I could afford like a way more expensive home than the home affordability calculator was and wasn't really explaining how it got to that higher number. So I don't know. Anything with numbers, I'm just not a super fan of using AI. You know, other things, I would say just kind of the emotional aspects of it, like, is this something I'm ready for?

Like, is this where I am in my life? You know that to an extent. That's something like maybe talk to human people about because this is really like a capital C commitment, right? It's a lot to deal with. As we're describing here with, you know, selling your home, right? at the same time as that you're buying another one or when you're looking to buy another one,

it's not just a lot to get into. It's also a lot to get back out of, right? So if you're at a point in your life where you're like, I'm not really sure what I want to do next, talk to the people around you, like, figure out like, hey, what do I want to do? What would make sense for me?

And you know GPT is going to think it's a good idea. Right. Yeah. Someone who will give you some pushback. Right. I did see an Instagram post the other day while aimlessly scrolling. And it caught my eye because it said

someone used AI, chat chippy T, for the whole process of selling their home and they didn't need an agent. So it was framed as a quote unquote game changer. You are in the housing market. You do this every day. You're the expert. Are there any trends that you're seeing in terms of how people are using AI during the home buying process or selling? People are always trying to figure out ways to sell without a real estate agent for sale by owner or FISBO is a whole thing. I have not heard of just using AI instead of it, although I can already imagine ways that people would try to use AI to just like do the FISBO process, but maybe not seem like it's a first sale by owner home. But in terms of how people are using AI, as a matter of fact, I do have fairly specific numbers on this because it's something that we asked about in NerdWall. It's 2026 Home Buyer Report.

So the Home Buyer Report is a big annual report that are dated nerds put together, kind of taking the pulse of the how. housing market. We do this every year, but this was the first year that we asked about AI. And we found that of Americans who are planning to buy a home in the next 12 months, 48% said they either already have or that they plan to use AI as part of the home buying process. Yeah, so how are they using it? So the most common way that people said they would use AI were estimating housing costs, that was 27%, guiding them in the buying process. So essentially what Cody's talking about was 26%. And then to visualize home designs or renovation was 25%. And that one I like a lot.

Just, you know, use it for the fun stuff for sure. Visualizing housing costs raises a flag for me because you just said we shouldn't be relying on numbers from these tools. It's a little, yeah, that one definitely raises some flags. Cody, you're part of the 48% using these tools. How are you feeling? I feel pretty good. But, you know, actually, Kate said something else about talking to people. and I think that is something that I undervalued going into the whole process.

I looked at a house and there were a bunch of houses kind of in a circle with a big shared backyard in the middle. My wife wants to get a dog someday. So she's like, well, you know, we need to figure out where to put the fence. And my mom said you need to make sure that that's basically allowed, not part of an HOA, but she asked me that because my parents had a next door neighbor who built their house next door and they put in the deed to the house you can't put a playground in the backyard which I didn't know was a thing

so that neighbor moved up the hill and now that neighbor can see their old house some people came to buy the house next door and they were outside and my mom walked over and she was like oh we'll be your new neighbors blah blah blah and they're like yeah we're just looking at the yard we're going to put a playground here and my mom goes well you know you can't do that right

and they're like, what do you mean? Well, because the deed says you can't do that, and the person that wrote it is like, up the hell. It's not an HOA story, but, you know, maybe this group of houses with a big shared backyard has a rule that you can't build fences. Now, I wouldn't have known to ask AI that.

I wouldn't have known to ask Nerbal at that. How would I have known that, right? You need people with some war stories. You need people. You have bought homes that had crazy things like that. Yes, you need war stories. So I think, you know, for me, I love using AI to augment it.

I will always, honestly, go to NerdWallet for like when I, when the rubber hits the road and I need a lender or somebody like, or I need to calculate how much I can afford. Yeah. But like, talk to people because that's going to give you more information than you've ever like had. By the way, my parents next to our neighbor that wanted to put in the playground, they backed out of buying the house and they sued the people that were selling the house because they didn't know about it. My parents thought the buyer's agent should have known. but anyway, they ended up losing in court and they lost $10,000 earnest money and backed out of the deal

because they couldn't build the playground. Well, thank you for coming on and talking to us. Keep us posted on how this all goes. It's the power of podcast, Sean. I'm bullish. I'm bullish on podcast. You know, me too. And thank you, Kate Wood, or is this AI?

Are you really Kate? I mean, I'm on a screen, so have you been keeping track track of how many fingers I have and how often it blink? We can't see your hands. Okay, there we go. Thank you so much, Kate.

Thank you, Kate. And that's all we have for this episode. Remember listener to send us your money questions. Don't send them to chat GPT before you turn to us. You can call us or text us on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730 Nerd. You can also email us your questions at Podcast atnervault.com or leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Follow us on your favorite podcast app that includes Spotify, Apple Podcast, and IHeartRadio to

automatically download new episodes. Here's our brief disclaimer. We are not your financial or investment or AI advisors. This nerdy info is provided for general educational and entertainment purposes and may not apply to your specific circumstances. This episode was produced by Tess Figgland, Hillary Georgie help with editing. Eve Krogman is our editor and a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all of their help. And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.

Hey, smart money listeners. We have a brand new email newsletter and it's completely worth signing up for, especially since it's free. Every issue has clips from recent episodes, links to stories you might have missed, and also behind the scenes commentary from me, Sean, and our producer. Some of it is stuff that doesn't make it into the episodes, the context, the moments, the takes we didn't plan on sharing. You can think of it as the group chat for smart money fans.

I'm going to be sharing inside details about parenting and money. Yes, I'll be sharing all the juicy stuff. And I'll have loads of tips about what I'm doing in my garden. So if you want to putz around your garden like I do, sign it for the newsletter. And also, you know, we have money tips and all that kind of stuff. So head to nerdwollet.com slash podcast to sign up. Again, it's free. That's nerdwollet.com slash podcast.

We'll see you in your inbox. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers. for CGs national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, productivity and innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline

and discover actionable solutions to reverse it.