AI in the Home Buying Process: What Works, What Doesn't, and When to Call an Expert

Summary

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Podcast Summary: NerdWallet’s Smart Money Podcast

Episode: AI in the Home Buying Process: What Works, What Doesn't, and When to Call an Expert

Date: April 20, 2026
Hosts: Sean Pyles, CFP® & Elizabeth Ayola
Guests: Cody Goff (NerdWallet data expert), Kate Wood (NerdWallet mortgage writer)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the home buying process. The hosts, along with their expert guests, discuss where AI tools like Claude (a popular AI chat tool) can streamline the journey of buying and selling a home—and where human expertise remains irreplaceable. By sharing real-world experiences, practical prompts, and essential caveats, the episode aims to give listeners a grounded understanding of how to blend technology and personal insight for smarter home buying.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Warm-Up: Financial "Would You Rather" Scenarios

(Timestamps: 03:11–16:34)

• The episode starts with a lively exchange of hypothetical financial dilemmas between Sean and Elizabeth, ranging from windfall investments to helping family with large financial needs.
• Themes of trust, responsibility, and long-term planning emerge, lightening the mood before diving into the technical discussion.

Notable Quotes:

• “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 ten years left to live? I do that towards the end. That's my final year." —Sean Pyles (04:16)
• “I pretend it’s a gift in my mind. If I get it back, great. But then I’m not going to be crying in the corner if I don’t get it back because I already put my mind to that.” —Elizabeth Ayola on lending to family (14:30)

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2. Introducing the Main Topic: AI in Home Buying

(Timestamps: 20:03–21:00)

• Premise: Cody Goff shares his ongoing journey of buying and selling a home, using the AI tool Claude extensively for decision support.
• Expert perspective: Kate Wood expresses skepticism and sets ground rules for using AI as a resource, not as at “source of truth.”

Notable Quotes:

• “I’m not a massive fan of AI for anything…I feel like, with the home buy process…to what extent AI is helpful is going to depend on, you know, how you use it. Are you just, you know, asking it questions and accepting what it tells you at face value? That’s probably not great.” —Kate Wood (22:47)

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3. How AI Was Used in Cody’s Home Buying/Selling Journey

(Timestamps: 23:29–29:38)

• Initial Steps: Cody used Claude for understanding the order of operations in buying and selling: financing, timing, when to get agents, exploring contingent offers, bridge loans, and mortgage recasts.
• Specific Prompts: He gave Claude detailed financial data to map out scenarios. AI suggested options he hadn’t considered (e.g., mortgage recast).
• Comparing with Human Experts: After initial guidance from AI, Cody still confirmed key decisions with lenders and relied on NerdWallet for objective data (e.g., comparing actual mortgage rates).
• Using AI as a Form-Filling Assistant: AI clarified which mortgage application fields truly mattered early on, saving hours of confusion.

Notable Quotes:

• “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...It helped me understand the order of operations for things.” —Cody Goff (24:33)
• “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.” —Cody Goff (28:20)

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4. The Limits and Caveats of AI in Real Estate

(Timestamps: 29:38–34:03)

• Over-Reliance Warnings: Claude undersold the risks of contingent offers and overemphasized bridge loans that, upon checking with real lenders, weren’t the best fit.
• Referral Advice: AI suggested asking selling/buying agents for referrals, which can be biased due to agent commission incentives.
• Nuance Needed: AI tools are only as good as the information (and context) they’re given by the human user.

Notable Quotes:

• “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.” —Cody Goff (37:20)
• “It could only answer the question as well as you ask the question, right?” —Kate Wood (37:36)

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5. Where AI Works Best vs. Where It Falls Short

(Timestamps: 39:31–42:33)

Pros:

• Personalization: Cody used AI as a “sounding board” to assess neighborhoods, school proximity, amenities, and if a location matched his family’s needs.
• Time Savings: AI condensed information from countless forums, blogs, and real estate sites into actionable summaries.
• Tone & Correspondence: Useful for drafting emails to agents and fine-tuning inquiries.

Cons:

• Property Search: AI proved ineffective at aggregating actual home listings (broken links, irrelevant results).
• Numbers and Calculations: AI was unreliable for estimating affordability or running complex calculators—risked overestimating budgets.
• Rule Quirks: Couldn’t anticipate legal/deed restrictions or nuanced local knowledge (“war stories” from real buyers and agents are essential).

Notable Quotes:

• “If you've got things that are important to you, like, I want a town that has at least one independent bookstore and I want a sushi place that delivers...It's not finding you specific houses, but it's going to tell you: this town or this neighborhood could work for you based on these things you like.” —Kate Wood (41:43)

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6. When to Use AI, When to Call an Expert

(Timestamps: 41:43–47:03)

• Best Uses for AI:

  • Defining personal priorities and values.
  • Organizing, brainstorming, summarizing research.
  • Visualizing home design/renovation ideas (25% of buyers plan to use AI this way per NerdWallet’s 2026 Homebuyer Report).

• When to Seek Human Help:

  • Crunching real numbers (mortgage affordability, rates, closing costs).
  • Navigating market-dependent strategies (contingent offers, bridge loans).
  • Interpreting legal restrictions, contracts, and local customs.
  • Getting ‘gut checks’ from people with real experience.

Notable Quotes:

• “Anything with numbers, I’m just not a super fan of using AI…Just kind of the emotional aspects of it, like, is this something I'm ready for? That's something maybe talk to human people about, because this is really like a capital C commitment.” —Kate Wood (42:37)

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7. The Bigger Trends: Are People Really Using AI in Home Buying?

(Timestamps: 44:14–45:34)

• Survey Data: In 2026, 48% of Americans planning to buy a home within 12 months say they have used or plan to use AI for the process.
• How? 27% estimating costs, 26% guidance in the process, 25% visualizing home designs.

Notable Quotes:

• “Visualizing housing costs raises a flag for me because you just said we shouldn’t be relying on numbers from these tools.” —Sean Pyles (45:25)

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Memorable Moments & Standout Quotes

• “You need people with some war stories who have bought homes that had crazy things like that.” —Sean Pyles, on the irreplaceable value of real-world, lived experience (47:03)

• “For me, I love using AI to augment it. I will always honestly go to NerdWallet for like, when the rubber hits the road and I need a lender... But, talk to people, because that's gonna give you more information than you've ever had.” —Cody Goff (47:03)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:11–16:34: Warm-up: Financial “Would You Rather” scenarios
• 20:03–21:00: Introduction to AI in the home buying journey
• 23:29–29:38: Cody describes using Claude for planning and research
• 29:38–34:03: Discussing the limits of AI’s advice and handling of complex scenarios
• 39:31–42:33: Personalization, time savings, and shortcomings of AI in real estate search
• 41:43–47:03: Final advice—when to leverage technology, when to seek a human

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Episode Takeaways

• AI is a valuable starting point: Use AI tools like Claude to organize your thoughts, refine your search, and tackle overwhelming logistics—especially early in the process.
• But do not trust AI blindly: Always double-check numbers, key decisions, and market advice with human experts or authoritative sources (i.e., lenders, agents, reputable sites like NerdWallet).
• Personal context is king: AI can help tailor the home search to your family’s habits and values, but only you and your close community can fill in the blanks about what truly matters—or what red flags to inspect.
• Blend tech and experience: Combine smart tools with smart people for the best chance at a smooth, confident home buying journey.

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End of Summary – For further money questions, contact the NerdWallet team directly or explore their resource-rich website.

Transcript

[Sean Pyles]

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[Elizabeth Ayola]

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[Sean Pyles]

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[Sean Pyles]

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[Elizabeth Ayola]

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[Sean Pyles]

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[Elizabeth Ayola]

Join the millions who rely on Spectrum Business. Visit spectrum.combusiness to learn more one more time that spectrum.com business restrictions apply.

[Sean Pyles]

Services not available in all areas. 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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

And I'm Sean Pyles. This episode, we're going to discuss how AI might be able to help you in the home buying process. Or not.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

All situations that could actually happen because life is bizarre.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Well, some of them, I hope they happen, especially with the one where I meant win, like a hundred thousand dollars.

[Sean Pyles]

Don't spoil anything. Some of them I hope really don't happen because Elizabeth was getting grim with her scenarios.

[Cody Goff]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

I just wanted to put you in a tough spot, Shawn. I do love you, though.

[Sean Pyles]

Thank you. Well, let's do it.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

Mm. Well, first of all, I really hope I have more than 10 years to live.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Me too.

[Sean Pyles]

I'm hoping for about 110 more. As we know. I wanna live forever.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Here we go.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Oh, my God. I've never thought about that. What if when I am on my deathbed, or let's say, heavens forbid, I get terminal illness? What if I just, you know, max out my credit card? I've never done that before.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

What if I hide my money in an estate? Dum dum dum.

[Sean Pyles]

We're going to call up some lawyers and figure this out.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

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 gotta rot in bed even if you only have 10 years left to live.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

We love a good bedrot and I'm bedrotting whether I got one year, ten hundred. We're doing that at least once a month. Okay.

[Sean Pyles]

It's your life well spent, right?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

That's right.

[Sean Pyles]

Okay, so that's what I would do. Now I'm gonna turn to my scenarios for you. Mine are really would you rathers? Cause 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?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 hundred k. I'm taking the a hundred k 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. Do you want to know what I would do with my.

[Cody Goff]

Please.

[Sean Pyles]

Yes.

[Cody Goff]

Hmm.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

Maybe you have multiple vacations.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

You have a good point. Because why am I having a scarcity mindset? I have 100k.

[Sean Pyles]

Yes.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 too, like new bracelet. But yeah, saving and spending.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Thank you. Which one should I give you next, Sean?

[Sean Pyles]

Give me a hard one.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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% and you have a mortgage. What is your next move?

[Sean Pyles]

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. But I'm gonna try to cut my expenses as much as I can. And so for things like my credit card debt, I'm gonna 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 onto 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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

That is very clever. And it sounds like a financial advisor wrote that. Do you think. Do you think a cfp?

[Sean Pyles]

You know, I didn't write it. I just thought it up on the spot.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 them know your situation so that hopefully you can get some grace there.

[Sean Pyles]

Even your utility companies, you might be able to get a cut on your gas bill, your water bill, maybe even your Internet. You don't know unless you call.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

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?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Oh, no. But then what would you replace that with? Because it brings you joy.

[Sean Pyles]

Oh, 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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Wow, you make losing your job and going into debt sound so romantic.

[Sean Pyles]

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?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

That's easy. A millionaire driving a Camry. And, you know, I've done driven some very Ricky 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.

[Sean Pyles]

Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 I. It's luxury enough for where I was, slash, am. But anyway, all that said, I do not feel like, even if I 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.

[Sean Pyles]

And, well, here's what I'm thinking, too. You've 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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Exactly, Sean. See, this is why you're my. My person.

[Sean Pyles]

Because I got you.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Yes, exactly. Okay, so let's see what scenario I have for you. Mm. 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?

[Sean Pyles]

How much do I trust this family member?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Okay.

[Sean Pyles]

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? 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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 them money and

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Yeah, I know a lot of people struggle with that. So I definitely wanted to put that scenario out there.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

30%, that's like a payday loan.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

That's.

[Sean Pyles]

Yeah, that'd be a good payday loan, actually.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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, so I 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.

[Sean Pyles]

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 of these different things.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 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.

[Sean Pyles]

How. How did you say no? And do you think it affected your relationship?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

I was. 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.

[Sean Pyles]

So 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 didn't have. That's right.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

And that's so smart because, yes, you want to help your friends, you want to help people in your community, but at the end of the day, you got to make sure that you are in good shape.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 great. Didn't negatively impact the friendship. My last one for you, Sean, you are one year away from retirement.

[Sean Pyles]

Sounds good. All right, I'm ready for it.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Kate Wood]

What are you going to do?

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

Whatever makes me the most money for the least amount of work. Yeah.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

At that point, it's all about the Benjamins, baby.

[Sean Pyles]

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?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

I have to leave something to my baby. I love him so much and I would. Why am I getting emotional? I would hate. Ugh. Why am I so stupid to leave him with confidence?

[Sean Pyles]

Who's your baby?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Of course I would absolutely leave him with something.

[Sean Pyles]

Yeah, well, you already have 529. You're doing great.

[Kate Wood]

Thank you.

[Sean Pyles]

Didn't mean to make you cry. Elizabeth, I'm so sorry.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

I'm so softy.

[Sean Pyles]

Thank you. You're gonna make me cry. Okay. Okay, let's bring it back up.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Okay. So, yes, I'm leaving my baby some money, but I'm also gonna be balling out because I have worked hard for so many years and saved, and I'm gonna enjoy my money at least most of it.

[Sean Pyles]

Ball out with your baby. Go on some tricks.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

That's right. All right. I did not expect to be getting all soppy there Shaw, but we're gonna move along. 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.

[Sean Pyles]

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 [e-mail] or leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

We're back in a minute. Stay with us.

[Sean Pyles]

The following is a paid sponsorship, not an endorsement by NerdWallet's editorial team. Today's episode is sponsored by Bilt.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

You've heard me talk about Bilt as the loyalty program that lets you earn points on rent wherever you live, and they just leveled up even more. As of 2026, renters and homeowners can also earn up to 1.25x points on their housing payments.

[Sean Pyles]

This is thanks to Bilt's three new credit cards, the Palladium Card, Obsidian Card and Blue Card. All three can turn your housing payments, rent or mortgage into flexible rewards, so you can choose the card that fits your lifestyle without missing out on points and exclusive benefits.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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[Elizabeth Ayola]

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[Sean Pyles]

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[Elizabeth Ayola]

Now available in Canada, too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com smart money for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com smartmoney we're back and 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 than. So we have our data expert on smart money, Cody Goff here to talk through his use of AI while buying his home.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

So welcome to Smart Money. Cody.

[Cody Goff]

Thank you, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

And welcome, Kate.

[Kate Wood]

Thanks for all hanging out without me.

[Sean Pyles]

We'll get you here next time, Kate.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Yeah.

[Sean Pyles]

So Kody, 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?

[Cody Goff]

I use Claude literally all the time.

[Sean Pyles]

Yeah.

[Cody Goff]

Like literally for work, for personal projects. It's everything.

[Sean Pyles]

Okay. And what about Claude makes it your go to AI tool versus, you know, ChatGPT or Gemini or what, any other option that you have.

[Cody Goff]

I've used all three. I started on ChatGPT, I tried Gemini. I'm not going to say it told me exactly what I wanted to hear.

[Sean Pyles]

It wasn't as they often do, let's say that, right?

[Cody Goff]

It wasn't because it was sycophantic. It just broke things down in a way that the information was digestible. I feel like sometimes with ChatGPT, it just gives you a laundry list of information. And Claude really would just be like, yeah, here's. Here's what's actually happening. Here's what you should pay attention to in its answers. So I just found it.

[Sean Pyles]

You're a fan of the syntax.

[Cody Goff]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

I have not used Claude, but I've heard amazing things in that it is easier to have a full conversation with it. Elizabeth, Kate, have either of you used Claude?

[Kate Wood]

I have not used Claude specifically.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

I have thanks to a newsletter that I subscribe to and I find based on my research, that Clawd is a little bit more ethical than ChatGPT. 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, used 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?

[Kate Wood]

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 buy 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 smooth out and probably make faster.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 or slash selling process that you did use Claude for?

[Cody Goff]

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 to. But if I put up my house now to sell it and then it sells, then I'm in a lot of trouble because I have two kids.

[Sean Pyles]

And you need somewhere to live.

[Cody Goff]

I need somewhere to live. Right. So I just didn't know the order of operations. They were 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 Cloud 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.

[Sean Pyles]

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 nerdwallet.com for that information?

[Kate Wood]

Yeah, I mean, so it's 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.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Kate Wood]

It's not so much that it's market specific, but that. So in, you know, I'm not personally familiar with Rockford, but based on, you know, what I've read in these chats and what Cody's 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 US 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, you know, 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 is 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.

[Cody Goff]

I did use nerdwalled for, for a lot of this, but like 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 nerdwallet, right? Like I went to the mortgage lenders, I, I put in, you know, how much I was wanting to borrow, you know, what, all the numbers and everything. And like I trust NerdWallet to give me that. Like I wouldn't have told that to Claude. And then I'm like, which lenders do you 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 Claude 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 like 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?

[Sean Pyles]

So you had Claude fill out applications for you.

[Cody Goff]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

Okay.

[Cody Goff]

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.

[Kate Wood]

It's a big con.

[Cody Goff]

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 NerdWallet. 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. 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 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, like, first of all, I'm moving. I'm moving 75 miles west. So this is. This is like an hour drive. The chances that one of those agents is going to know somebody in the Rockford area are slim. 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

[Sean Pyles]

advice that Claude gave to me. That almost seems like Claude was regurgitating information at Red in a blog somewhere. But that said, it seems like you got a lot of value out of having having your personal information in Claude and being able to have it analyze that. How helpful was that versus obviously you wouldn't have that accessible in an article that you're reading.

[Cody Goff]

And that's why I turned to Claude first with the order of operation thing, because I wouldn't know how to search. I could Google what do I do if I'm buying a home, but I need to buy it, find a house before I sell the house. I just don't know what queries I would have put in exactly. But again, I think that all the best information you could find is on nerdwallet. 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. 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 like NordWallet that are like thoroughly researched so they can tell you what to actually do.

[Sean Pyles]

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, it can just get confusing and you have 12,000 tabs open and you don't know what's where.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Kate Wood]

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 that 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, 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 did 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. Uh, 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, to me.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Okay, well, now we've looked at the things that Claude has been helpful with. And I know, Cody, you 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?

[Kate Wood]

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 too. 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, you know, mortgage level loan.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Right.

[Kate Wood]

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. 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 ten grand toward your loan's balance and you're giving them that as a lump sum. So the lender then re amortizes 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 are going to be 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.

[Cody Goff]

In A'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 clear.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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 NerdWallet or other resources.

[Kate Wood]

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 not a normal thing to know about. And that's totally fine.

[Sean Pyles]

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 people?

[Cody Goff]

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 know, 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 because 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 bikable? 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, 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. And some of it might sound obvious, but there's little things that you can kind of do to assess a neighborhood. Kind of feel a little bit.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Cody Goff]

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. Cause I'd pull in, we'd walk up and there's like, 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?

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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, Quora for those who use quora, 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 Claude for that purpose is too maybe.

[Cody Goff]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

No, also that's the most fun part is looking at all the listings.

[Cody Goff]

That is fun.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Kate, can you speak to it not being good at finding listings? I know some people sometimes have issues with broken links.

[Kate Wood]

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 la. 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, not the best with this. And like Sean said, just browsing, you know, just browsing listings is kind of recreational.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

All right, Kate. So we have highlighted, thanks to Cody, some areas where AI can be helpful and 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?

[Kate Wood]

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 in 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 index on is a really interesting use of AI and something where it could be really helpful in your home search.

[Sean Pyles]

And so, Kate, what about where you wouldn't use AI in the home buying and selling process?

[Kate Wood]

Anything number related I'd be a little hesitant with. I tried comparing ChatGPT 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? 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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Right.

[Kate Wood]

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?

[Sean Pyles]

Yeah. Someone who will give you some pushback.

[Kate Wood]

Right.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

I did see an Instagram post the other day while aimlessly scrolling and it caught my eye because it said someone used AI ChatGPT 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.

[Kate Wood]

People are always trying to figure out ways to sell without a real estate agent. For sale by owner or FSBO 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 FSBO process, but maybe not seem like it's a for 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 NerdWallet's 2020 series homebuyer report. So the homebuyer report is a big annual report that our data nerds put together, kind of taking the pulse of the 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.

[Sean Pyles]

Yeah. So how are they using it?

[Kate Wood]

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 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.

[Sean Pyles]

Visualizing housing costs raises a flag for me because you just said we shouldn't be relying on numbers from these tools.

[Kate Wood]

It's a little. Yeah, that. That one definitely raises some flags.

[Sean Pyles]

Cody, you're part of the 48% using these tools. How are you feeling?

[Cody Goff]

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 it had. 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, 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 hill. 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 Nerdball at that. How would I have known that?

[Sean Pyles]

You need people with some war stories who have bought homes that had crazy things like that.

[Cody Goff]

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. 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 gonna give you more information than you've ever, like, had. By the way, my parents next door 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. Cause they couldn't build the playground.

[Sean Pyles]

Well, thank you for coming on and talking to us. Keep us posted on how this all goes.

[Cody Goff]

It's the power of podcasts, Sean. I'm bullish. I'm bullish on podcasts, you know, Me too.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

And thank you, Kate Wood. Or is this AI? Are you really Kate?

[Kate Wood]

I mean, I'm on a screen, so. Have you been keeping track of how many fingers I have and how often I blink?

[Sean Pyles]

We can't see your hands. Okay, there we go. Thank you so much, Kate.

[Kate Wood]

Thank you, Kate.

[Sean Pyles]

And that's all we have for this episode. Remember, listener, to send us your money questions. Don't send them to ChatGPT 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 [e-mail] or leave us a comment on Spotify or YouTube.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

Follow us on your favorite podcast app that includes Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio to automatically download new episodes.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

This episode was produced by Tess Viglund. Hilary Georgie help with editing. Eve Krogman is our editor and a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all of their help.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

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.

[Sean Pyles]

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.

[Elizabeth Ayola]

You can think of it as the group chat for smart money fans. I'm going to be sharing insight details about parenting and money. Yes, I'll be sharing all the juicy

[Sean Pyles]

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[Elizabeth Ayola]

That's NerdWallet.com podcast. We'll see you in your inbox.

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