National Home Inspector Exam

[chuckhopkins76]

OK, I know that I am going to get alot of grief, but here goes.

I have been a licensed home builder for 13 years and with the housing market dead I decided to go ahead and get my inspectors license. I have always wanted to do this, but never had time. I completed my course studies with real good scores and will be taking my NHIE on October 15. I bought the cram exam and been studing hard. Any suggestions for test, E&O Insurance and General Liability. Thanks Alot !

[Jerry Simon]

OK, I know that I am going to get alot of grief, but here goes.

I have been a licensed home builder for 13 years and with the housing market dead I decided to go ahead and get my inspectors license. I have always wanted to do this, but never had time. I completed my course studies with real good scores and will be taking my NHIE on October 15. I bought the cram exam and been studing hard. Any suggestions for test, E&O Insurance and General Liability. Thanks Alot !

Track down Brian Goodman, buy him a steak dinner with all the trimmings, and see if he'll let you pick his brain.

[Richard Moore]

Chuck,

I'll leave the insurance questions to others but as for the NHIE...

If you have, indeed, been studying hard I doubt you will have much difficulty passing. Having just recently taken the thing myself for our new state licenses, I have to say I was quite disappointed in how easy it was. I think the pass rate is 70%. I'm not sure exactly how they calculate that, but IMHO, that's horribly low and I wish the bar was set higher.

Keep up the studying, go through the archives & library here, but don't sweat the exam too much. There's ample time and no need to rush so just make sure you read the questions thoroughly and carefully. Watch out for negatives as in "what is not an approved etc, etc".

[Scottpat]

Hi Chuck,

The NHIE should be a fairly easy exam for an experianced inspector who has been around for a year or longer, I think Richard has been around a little bit longer and has done a few inspections. I think you will find the exam a little harder simply because you have not done any inspections. Remember the exam is testing you on what is correct and not what you did as a builder.

Mississippi has one of the lowest passing ratios and this is due to the low pre-license education requirement of 60 hours. States Like LA have double the hour requirement and also require X number of inspections with an experienced inspector. LA has one of the higher pass rates in the country. Right now the national pass ratio average is around 68%, this is in line with other high stakes licensing examinations.

I would try to find a local inspector who will allow you to ride with them on a few inspections. Ask them questions and watch what they do.

As for E&O, I would look at Business Risk Partners, OREP, ALLEN Insurance and FRIEA. Most offer GL as well as E&O.

What part of MS are you in.

[chuckhopkins76]

I live in Saltillo,MS. That is 10 miles North of Tupelo (Elvis Presleys birth place)

WOW, Scott P. your web site is very nice looking

[Scottpat]

I live in Saltillo,MS. That is 10 miles North of Tupelo (Elvis Presleys birth place)

WOW, Scott P. your web site is very nice looking

I was in Saltillo on a commercial inspection about two weeks ago. It is about 3 hours from me.

You should contact Ed Neelly, he sits on the State Board and is a home inspector in Tupelo. Might be a good source for a ride-a-long. And then again that is kind of close to his market so you might need to go down over to the Oxford area to find a person.

Thanks for the complement on my website. It is by no means a fancy site, it is a homemade product that screams do-it-yourself. But, it does pull up rather well organically in the search engines and I guess that is all that really matters.