Intro
As I sat and pondered what a good first blog post would be, it hit me. Start at the beginning, Do home inspectors need a license? The answer is, varies by state. Some states such as California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii do not require any licensing. That sounds a little too easy to start a new profession. Although I don’t know for certain if they have any other requirements such as years in construction or other backgrounds in related fields. New York however is a license requiring state.
Back To School
What is the process like to obtain a home inspection license in New York state? That is a multi point answer I’m afraid. It starts with finding a education center that is accepted by the state to fulfill the 140 hours of required education. After some research I landed on New York School Of Home Inspection & Construction. The cost of this schooling is about $3000.00. The education consists of 100 hours of “classroom” and 40 hours “field”. The classroom portion is soup to nuts everything that you may find in homes from footers to ridgecaps and the field work is 5 separate 8 hour days of inspecting a home and writing a report on it.
The Final Countdown
After passing this 140 hour course comes the state test. It consists a $50 testing fee and multiply choice questions on anything and everything that was covered in class. After waiting patiently for weeks, finally in the mail came my results, PASS! We’re over the hump now, on to applying for the license, the state fee is $250 and with that must be submitted proof of insurance. The whole process took about 6 months start to finish and at the end I was ready to start helping people, the reason I decided on this change of career path in the first place. But that’s a story for another blog!
Thanks for sticking around, see ya on the next one!
Ben