FAQ — Nestlyze AI Buyer's Agent

Frequently asked questions

• What is Nestlyze? An AI buyer's agent for US homebuyers. Tell us about you in a 2-minute chat; we pick 24 homes matched to your life with a 2-sentence fit explanation + Nestimate valuation + walk/climate/school signals.
• How is Nestlyze different from Zillow, Redfin, or my agent? Zillow and Redfin are listing databases with black-box Zestimates. Your local agent is commission-paid and knows one sub-region. Nestlyze is buyer-paid with transparent Nestimate reasoning and deliberately crosses regions a local agent wouldn't show you.
• What is Nestimate and how accurate is it? Nestimate is our transparent valuation: a price range with confidence based on photo analysis, comps, condition signals, and school quality. Bay Area backtest: median absolute error ~4.6%, 75% of estimates within 10% (n=16, 2026-06), median bias ~-1.2% (slightly low). One example sale (Newberry FL 2022, sold $550,912) came in at $545K, but single cases aren't representative — see the aggregate backtest.
• Is Nestlyze free? Your first analysis is free. After that, analyses cost credits — packs are $5 / $15 / $50. Recommendations, Ask AI, Nestimate, and browsing listings are free.
• Who builds Nestlyze? Nestlyze is built by a solo founder — an engineer, not a brokerage. Everything on the site (the 6-agent pipeline, Nestimate, the school-boundary lookup) is built and maintained by one person, which is why the accuracy numbers are published with their sample sizes instead of marketing rounding.
• Is Nestlyze a licensed real-estate agent or brokerage? No. Nestlyze is an analysis tool, not a licensed real-estate agent, broker, or brokerage, and it doesn't negotiate, write offers, or represent you in a transaction. "AI buyer's agent" describes whose side the analysis is on — not a legal agency relationship. Use your report alongside a licensed professional.
• Where does Nestlyze's data come from? Public and licensed sources the pipeline actually queries: NCES SABS school-attendance boundaries (last federal cycle, 2015-16 — always verify with the district), FEMA flood maps and disaster declarations, USGS earthquake data, Cal Fire wildfire severity zones, EPA Superfund/ECHO/air quality, California GeoTracker contamination sites, Census ACS, Walk Score, OpenStreetMap, and the listing's own photos. The written analysis is generated by Anthropic Claude.
• Which cities does Nestlyze cover? Our recommendation pool is California-focused (20,000+ listings, deepest in the Bay Area), with Austin, Seattle, NYC metro, and Miami also covered. Single-address deep analysis works nationwide.
• Does Nestlyze represent the seller? No. We never take commission from a seller or seller's agent. Entire revenue is buyer-paid (credits/subscriptions).
• How much down payment do I really need? Conventional 5-20%; FHA 3.5%; VA 0% for qualifying veterans. Bay Area reality: most competitive offers put down 20%+ to avoid PMI.
• What is Walk Score and what's a good one? A 0-100 score measuring how many daily errands are reachable on foot. 90-100 walker's paradise, 70-89 very walkable, 50-69 somewhat walkable, below 50 car-dependent. Every 1 point = $500-$3,000 in Bay Area value.
• How do I check if a house is in a flood zone? Search your address at msc.fema.gov. Zones AE/AO/A/VE = high risk. Zone X = minimal. Nestlyze checks FEMA for every address automatically.
• Does Nestlyze use ChatGPT? We use Anthropic Claude (the 6 domain agents + synthesizer run on Claude; vision and narrative use a faster Claude model). We picked Claude for honesty and Fair Housing compliance.
• Do you sell my data? No. We don't sell user data, addresses, or search history to data brokers, lead-gen platforms, or agents.