Home Inspection
The national inspector examination in its real shape, plus the Texas and New York state exams — with building-system schematics that hide a defect, a missed-defect spotter, and report writing that is graded rather than admired.
Thirty-four states license home inspectors and sixteen do not. Check yours before you buy anything, including this.
The shape
Three domains at a published weighting, and the first one is seven-tenths of the exam.
Practice forms here are composed to that weighting rather than to an even spread.
The National Home Inspector Examination® runs 200 questions in four hours, of which 20 are unscored pretest items, reported on a scaled score of 200 to 800 with 500 to pass, at an examination fee of about $225 through PSI:
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Property and building inspection — the systems themselves, across thirteen published tasks at roughly four to seven percent each | 70% |
| Analysis of findings and reporting | 20% |
| Professional responsibilities | 10% |
From the examination board’s published overview as of August 2026. Registration, the fee and the score report are the board’s and the vendor’s, not ours. Whether your state accepts this examination, requires its own, or licenses inspectors at all is your state’s decision — and it is the first thing to check.
The systems domain
You cannot learn that from a bulleted list of component names.
You learn it by being shown a system and asked what is wrong with it.
A framing detail, a service panel, a drain-waste-vent run, a flue, a roof edge — drawn fresh, with something in it that should not be there. Find it, name it, and say what it means. A new drawing each time, so there is no set of pictures to memorize.
Here is a described house and here is the report somebody wrote about it. What did they not catch, and what did they describe as fine that is not? Inspecting is a noticing profession, and noticing is trainable.
Write the narrative and get it graded on what it describes, what it implies and what it recommends — the three things a defensible defect narrative has to do, and the rubric is shown to you before you write, not after.
What an inspection is required to cover, what it is permitted to exclude, and where the boundary of the engagement sits. The associations publish different standards and some states publish their own — the material is tagged with which one governs, because “the standard” is not one document.
Structure, exterior, roofing, plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, insulation and ventilation, interiors, and the site — each in its published share of the exam rather than in whatever order a textbook found convenient.
Two hundred questions in four hours is a long sit, and pacing is a skill you should not be learning for the first time on the day. Composed to the published weighting; no two forms alike.
Texas and New York
Both ship at launch beside the national examination.
Other state variants are compositions of the same material and arrive when they are built, not when we announce them.
The state’s real estate inspector examinations, which pair national inspection content with a portion on the standards of practice the state itself publishes — and the state’s standards are prescriptive in a way the association standards are not, which changes what a report has to say.
The state’s own home inspector examination, built to the outline the state publishes. As with Texas, the systems knowledge is shared with the national exam; what differs is the standards and professional-responsibility material layered on top of it.
Whether you need a license at all is a state question, and the answer is genuinely no in sixteen states. Most licensing states accept the national examination; two write their own; the standards of practice differ between the associations and the states that publish their own. Find out what your state requires before you buy preparation for anything — from us or from anyone.
$39/mo month to month, or $31/mo on annual billing. Launching Monday, May 17, 2027.
Join the WaitlistNational Home Inspector Examination® is a registered trademark of the Examination Board of Professional Home Inspectors, Inc. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by EBPHI; the mark is used here for nominative identification of the examination only.
Pearson VUE and PSI are marks of their respective owners. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by either of them, and neither of them endorses this product; the names are used here for nominative identification of who delivers an examination only.
ASHI® is a registered trademark of the American Society of Home Inspectors, Inc. and InterNACHI® is a registered trademark of the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors, Inc. Neither association is affiliated with, sponsors, or endorses this product; the marks are used here for nominative identification of their published standards of practice only.
REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark of the National Association of REALTORS®, which identifies real estate professionals who are members of the association and subscribe to its Code of Ethics; a real estate licensee is not a REALTOR® unless a member. AccelaStudy AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by the National Association of REALTORS®; the mark is used here for nominative identification only and never as a synonym for a licensee.
AccelaStudy® and Renkara® are registered trademarks of Renkara Media Group, Inc. All third-party marks are the property of their respective owners and are used for nominative identification only.
