A Home Inspector’s Education and Home Inspector Training: The Value of the Learning Curve
By Alyssa Cink
Last Updated September 30, 2024
Home inspector continuing education goes far beyond licensing. A home inspector’s education can impact how you do your job, how clients and agents perceive you, and sometimes your insurance coverage.
We asked your peers why the learning curve matters and where new inspectors can seek opportunities.
Why is home inspector continuing education important?
A home inspector’s education is one of the most valuable tools inspectors can carry.
Here are some reasons why inspectors make the investment (besides your state’s home inspector licensing requirements):
1. A home inspector’s education is good for risk management.
As Gary Youness of House to Home Complete Structure & Property Inspections in Michigan once said: “Risk management is mainly in the training.”
For this reason, it may be valuable to find home inspector jobs with training, like paid home inspector licensing courses and shadowing. For business owners, the more home inspector job training your employees get, the more confident and consistent they’ll be. In turn, they’ll open up your business to less liability.
“This is such a challenging, multifaceted, difficult industry and profession to do. If you don’t invest in the person and make sure their quality is up to your company’s standard, they’re either going to get a lot of complaints—or they’re not going to be consistent with how everybody else is doing things,” said Kurt Stein of HouseScan Inspections in Florida.
2. There’s always something new to learn.
There’s a reason why they call it home inspector continuing education. Even in unregulated states, developing new skills or knowledge never ends.
“We’re never smart enough to do this job perfectly,” said Thomas Wells of Home Sweet Home Inspection Services in Florida. “We retake the inspector’s final exam every couple of years to stay up on things. … We constantly are trying to grow [our] standpoint of education … [and] stay up on the whole industry, because it’s constantly changing.”
“You’re never going to stop learning, from the day you started inspecting until the day you quit,” said Randy Sipe of Family Home Inspection Services in Kansas in our report writing article. “Your business grows, you grow as an inspector, and your knowledge base grows.”
“I don’t stop learning. I don’t stop going to classes: regardless of how old I am, regardless of how much I know or don’t know. You’re always going to learn something,” said Vince Cardone of Residential Inspection in Florida. “If I have the opportunity to go to a class, I’m taking that class. Even if it’s something I might have done three, four, five times. You’re always going to learn something new out of it.”
“That is going to keep me ahead of the competition and also garner the…continuing education I need to further develop my knowledge,” he said.
As part of your home inspector continuing education, prepare to learn (and re-learn) things like:
- Building standards and safety regulations. (Although you don’t inspect to code, familiarizing yourself provides helpful context to your reports.)
- Homes’ systems and components.
- Business management.
- Marketing.
- Social skills.
- Report writing.
- New services, like pool and spa inspections.
- New technology.
3. A home inspector’s education makes you more confident and well-rounded.
Buying and selling homes is stressful. Clients want inspectors to answer questions with conviction. This confidence comes from knowledge and experience.
“Clients go into buying a house with a lot of fear and doubt,” said Cristhian Perez of Home Check in Florida. “[An unconfident inspector is] going to give them doubts. They’re just not going to have a good experience overall.”
“If you go into this business with the absolute basic 120 hours and you [only] take your core courses, you’re not going to have the breadth of knowledge you’re going to need when somebody asks you a question,” Cardone said.
By pursuing the best home inspector training programs, you develop the confidence to provide a consistently stellar experience that puts clients at ease.
4. It may boost your income.
Furthermore, inspectors who are more experienced and offer more services often find they can charge more for their inspections. By promoting and charging more for your expertise, you can make a great return.
“It’s always a good idea to keep learning. Because the more value that you can provide to your clients, the more that you can charge, [and] the busier you’ll be,” Perez said.
How to Get the Most From Your Home Inspector Education
Are you training to be a home inspector? Curious what other learning avenues are available to you? What education do you need to be a home inspector (aside from what’s required)?
The inspectors we interviewed share their advice.
Treat home inspector education requirements as your foundation.
For many, continuing education means meeting the home inspector education requirements necessary to renew or earn their licenses. Experienced inspectors, however, know the bare minimum won’t get you far.
Instead, if your state enforces home inspector continuing education requirements, treat them as your foundation—not your limit. Take extra classes. Attend conferences. Complete lots of practice inspections. Look for other learning opportunities wherever you go.
Stein, for example, puts new employees through an online school and in-person training. Although more intense than his state’s home inspector education requirements, his investment has spelled better retention and success for the whole team.
“We’re pretty consistent with six months of very intensive, hands-on…training, one on one: mock inspections, paid inspections, classroom training, watching YouTube videos, a whole gamut,” Stein said.
Similarly, Cardone completed about 300 hours on top of his minimum CE requirements before launching his business. He’d moved from New York and wanted agents and clients to see him as a true, expert Florida inspector.
“A lot of inspectors will come in here and just do the basics. Well, the basics give you basic results,” Cardone said.
Attend in-person events.
In-person home inspector training courses, conferences, and other networking events offer great variety.
Perez, for example, supplements his continuing education with in-person meetings or workshops. Sometimes he even takes courses at a local construction school. Although they aren’t home inspector continuing education courses, learning about carpentry, electrical systems, and HVAC gives him a new perspective.
Cardone values in-person home inspector education opportunities because they allow him to interact with peers. How someone asks a question in a class or conference can always teach you something new.
“You always learn something [from] the people around you,” Cardone said. “When we go to these conferences, we’re all hanging out together, we’re talking together, we’re discussing together, we’re building each other’s businesses together. … We’re all there to help each other grow.”
Seek hands-on home inspector training.
“Can I learn to be a home inspector online?”
In some states, you can accomplish online home inspector training. You might complete your home inspector continuing education requirements online, too.
But with the job being visual in nature, Stein urges new inspectors not to do everything online. Instead, take advantage of hands-on learning when you can.
“There is nothing that will replicate the hands-on training and the hands-on experience that you get from actually being in homes. I think that’s the most important thing,” Stein said, adding that the top goal for new inspectors is getting in hundreds of houses in the early days. “You pick up on a lot of things just by being in houses.”
Practice will be one of your best teachers. Practice at your family and friends’ houses. If you don’t get hands-on experience in a test environment first, you’ll make more of those mistakes during real inspections.
Learn from a mentor.
One of the best ways to get hands-on home inspector training is to shadow an experienced inspector. In fact, Stein partners every new inspector with a training manager for their first six months.
Not every business can invest those home inspection training costs. But getting brand-new inspectors up to speed with your seasoned employees—and doing it right—is an important task, Stein argues. After all, they’re learning not only how to be a good inspector, but also how to communicate with agents and clients, set expectations, and market your business, Perez said.
“Shadowing a home inspector is going to allow you see everything in person and first hand, versus just reading about it,” Perez said. “I didn’t shadow anyone when I first started, and I could have gotten to where I’m at now quicker if I had taken the time to shadow someone.”
So don’t try to learn all by yourself. You’re more likely to succeed and less likely to make mistakes if you learn from others first. If you can’t shadow someone, heed Stein’s advice and create a network of inspectors to whom you can ask questions.
Start or join a group chat.
New inspectors typically turn to social media for their home inspector training and home inspector continuing education questions. But have you considered starting a group chat?
A group chat can be valuable for a multi-inspector company or even a group of solo inspectors. By encouraging everyone to ask and answer questions, you can create a useful knowledge base for your growing team, Stein says.
“In our group chat, we focus on knowledge sharing every single day,” Stein said. “Everybody in our organization participates in that. … It’s information sharing nonstop.”
Utilize online materials.
If he were to start his home inspector training all over again, Stein would devote more time to online articles and videos.
YouTube videos and articles about common home issues, inspection methods, following standards of practice, and house maintenance are readily available and easy to consume. That’s why Perez used them to supplement his initial learning, too.
“When I got into home inspecting, I had to learn everything from the beginning,” he said. “I started off by taking online programs [and courses]. I also supplemented that with YouTube videos and online blogs from different home inspectors.”
Find your ideal learning style.
You might be hunting for the best online home inspection training.
Maybe you learn best with in-person home inspector field training. Many inspectors appreciate the structure and organic networking of in-person home inspection license classes. Alternatively, in-person classes might be too distracting or inconvenient for your busy schedule. Whatever the case, everyone has a home inspector continuing education style they prefer.
Find yours. Whether it’s one, the other, or a combination of articles, shadowing, online classes, and in-person classes, learn your style early on. If you enjoy it, you’ll be more likely to stick with it.
Be transparent about your home inspector training.
Don’t shy away from advertising your knowledge.
For example, Cardone displays his certifications, licenses, experience, awards, and associations on his website. By being open about his commitment to home inspector continuing education, Cardone has earned a reputation as the inspector who goes above and beyond for his clients.
“Most of our business is a one-off. We do the one transaction and we’re…more than likely not ever going to see that client ever again. That’s why it’s important for me to maintain discipline. And maintain my standards in the eyes of the community with respect to the [agents],” Cardone said.
Get insurance as top-notch as a home inspector’s education.
A home inspector’s continuing education isn’t the only place where going above your requirements helps. Finding an insurer who goes above and beyond for home inspectors is critical, too.
Ready for an insurance company that cares about protecting your inspection business as much as you do?
Apply for a no-obligation errors and omissions (E&O) and general liability (GL) quote at inspectorproinsurance.com.
