License number needed?

Hello all,
I’m pretty brand new to the field of home inspections and particularly new to internachi. I actually have two questions if anyone has the time to share their experience and/or knowledge. I’m from Texas, so I’m unable to get licensed through internachi, however, there are a ton of CE courses approved by TREC. First question is, does it matter if I proceed with taking CE courses right now if I’m not yet licensed? My financial situation doesn’t exactly allow me to jump into a school like “Champions” right now (or any other TREC approved schools) so I thought for now, I’d gain as much knowledge as possible by taking as many CE courses that I can. One of the first videos I’ve seen when trying to start a course is walking me through the process of entering my state license # (which I obviously do not have). My concern is not getting the TREC credit I’ve earned because I dont yet have a license. Second question is the path to take. I’ve seen the extensive list for TREC approved courses within internachi, and I’m curious if it matters in which order I should take these courses or if going straight from top to bottom would suffice?
TIA

Welcome Stanley!

Someone from TX, familiar w/TREC, will chime in soon.

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Thank you Larry!
Looking forward to it.

CE courses are “Continuing Education” courses, and NOT Primary Education courses.
CE’s do not apply until you are licensed and performing your “re-education” to stay knowledgeable and up to date on industry topics, so you are able to Renew your License.

With that being said, you should take all the education you can muster to learn the trade, whether you get credits or not! It can only better you as a (potential) inspector in preparation for your licensing education.

Question: if you cannot afford your required education, how do you expect to obtain all the other requirements such as insurance, and all else required to operate a business??

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My father used to say, “If you’re bored, learn something.” This was instrumental in keeping us from ever telling him we were bored!

I know that doesn’t apply, just thought I’d throw that in. Learn as much as you can from any source you can get your hands on. That includes courses that say CE. You will learn whether or not this is something you really want to do.

Good luck!
“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” Charles Coburn as Mr. Dingle in " The More the Merrier" 1943

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best to get it from the horses mouth & not their ass
i (when i was licensed) & other’s found it’s best to directly contact trec with all ?s & concerns & requests for interpretations of their or others tx licensing rules

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oh I absolutely plan on it tomorrow. Unfortunately, I wasn’t curious during their normal hours of operation so I figured I’d introduce myself and see what some experts had to say. Thank you for being straight with me though.

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That’s great info Jeffrey, thank you!
As for your question, I guess you could say I’m in no rush. I was actually just introduced to the home inspection field about 3 weeks ago. Since then, I’ve had nothing but excitement and anxiousness to get it rolling because I know it’s what I want to do. Unfortunately, the bulk of my money is tied up in previous commitments so the couple of grand to go to a school like AHIT just isn’t ideal right now. That’s not to say things wont change in a couple of months. I don’t plan on having my own business in the next couple of weeks so I’m not concerning myself with everything required to operate a business right now. The education is the sole priority for the time being. But I do appreciate your concern.

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Thanks Robert!
Words from the wise are always appreciated.

Good to know, thank you. I initially planned on going the professional route immediately. I’ll be making some calls this morning, starting with TREC as some have suggested.
Did you jump right into CE courses upon obtaining your license?

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Where in Texas are you located?

You are absolutely correct!
You shouldn’t be paying a subscription rate for anything, ESPECIALLY when you are new to the industry and finding your way.
IMO, when a newer inspector combines all of their monthly fees together, and has 2+ slow months in a row, it is the beginning of the end for their business!
Don’t fall into the trap of Subscription Services… you will likely live to regret the choice!!

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Fort Worth.

Makes sense. I initially started internachi because putting up the money for an AHIT type school wasnt an option, so I figured it would only benefit me to cram my head with whatever knowledge I could through internachi until I was in a better situation to pay for school. The $50 a month for knowledge seems great, but I now realize I would likely have to retake the courses once I’m actually licensed for it to count for TREC.

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Going into the inspection business is expensive, if you don’t have the money for school, you definitely don’t have the money for tools, insurance, marketing, reporting software, scheduling software, website, etc. I spend about $20,000 when I started getting everything I needed to succeed. and marketing is the one thing that never ends. Clients need to find you and know who you are to hire you, So it’s non stop with the marketing, Some is free, most is not.

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you can also just take the internachi CPI test for free to see where you are at knowledge wise without even being a member.

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Great stuff. Thank you!

Before you pay for anything you should check out the following:

Pull the TREC high value data set for Inspectors which you can find here High Value Data Sets | TREC . Import the list into a spreadsheet form. Sort the list by counties. On that page are instructions for importing and sorting by fields. Add up all of the Inspectors in the counties surrounding DFW to see how many are there already and there are a lot! We do have Inspectors that will travel from Hunt County to Parker County and Hill County to Grayson County.

Next go to the TAMU RE Center at https://www.recenter.tamu.edu/ . Read through their datasets that show RE sales histories of both existing and new homes to see how many potential home inspections that can occur. Then take that number and multiply it by about a very generous and high end of .2 to get an idea of how many actual inspections are occurring.

Now create an expense list for your training and all of the tools and materials you will need to even just start inspecting. Don’t forget RE Association dues as an Affiliate so you can get a Supra Key for access to existing homes or your business there is going to be almost none. Don’t forget your E&O insurance costs.

Unless you kiss a lot of ass your first two years at least you won’t be touching much of any of that business to speak of. So make sure you have plenty of reserve money on hand and don’t even consider doing this part time during that period. Doing it part time is definitely going to cost you when you can not respond fast enough to perform inspections.

After you have done all of that you can now review the information to see if you still think getting your Inspector license will be worth it.

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