Opening the Door for Home Inspectors

A LOT OF HOMES

The Legislature doesn't think so. Last week both houses overwhelmingly approved a bill (S-2503) that would ease requirements for licensing home inspectors and sent it to Acting Governor Richard Codey, who says he favors it.

The measure arose because the real estate boom has bumped up demand for the home inspectors who evaluate homes for defects before a sale closes. "There are 271 licensed home inspectors in the state of New Jersey," says Senator Paul A. Sarlo (D-Bergen). "Two-hundred-seventy-one to handle all real estate closings in the state is not enough."

Actually, there are 456 inspectors licensed in New Jersey, according to the state's Home Inspection Advisory Committee. But supporters of the bill say many of them either live out of state or are engineers that do inspections as a side job.

Meanwhile, there are about 1,000 unlicensed home inspectors who are practically blocked from getting a license because of stringent regulations adopted by the state in 1998, says Lorraine Hutton, director of the Home Inspection Consumer Advocate Group. In addition to 300 hours of schooling, regulations require candidates to do 50 mentored training inspections and work as an employee of a licensed inspector for a year, while performing a minimum of 250 paid inspections.

There's one vital problem with the field work requirements, Sarlo says. "I don't know what home inspector will train future competition?"

Indeed, licensed home inspectors that do hire up-and-coming inspectors "want their [mentees] to sign noncompete clauses so they can't do inspections in their vicinity for 10 years," Hutton says.

Further compounding the problem is that most home inspectors don't need associates. "Historically, the home-inspection field is a one-man profession, therefore employment opportunities don't exist," Hutton says.

Under the bill, instead of being required to conduct 50 mentored inspections and 250 professional inspections, candidates would be required to undergo 40 hours of supervised field inspections, which translates into about 15 home inspections. And those inspections, for the first time, would be provided by the schools that offer a home-inspection education.

Schools that offer home-inspection programs include the Building Inspector's Career Institute in Robbinsville and vocational schools in Middlesex, Morris and Bergen counties.

Inspectors will still be required to be high school graduates, finish the educational program and pass a standard exam.

"This legislation enables an individual to actually enter the profession without relying on competition to train them and hire them for a year," Hutton says. "What I envision is, one of these schools will buy a house or two and use them as a training ground. So these people can really be trained in a supervised fashion instead of dragging them along on field inspections."

But easing regulations comes with a cost to home buyers, says Joseph F. Corsetto, president-elect of the American Society of Home Builders and a home inspector in Dover.

"Home inspectors protect the public from financial and physical harm when they are making the largest purchase of their life," Corsetto says. "Properly training home inspectors takes time. There is a nursing shortage. Is anyone cutting back on nurse education and training to help alleviate the shortage?"

Some legislators saw few other options in a state that sees tens of thousands of homes sold per year. "We have to be practical," says Senator Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen). "We do need a force of home inspectors to handle the real estate transactions in New Jersey."