Who publishes this page, and what that means for you
This site is published by Stonebriar Property Inspections — Keith Boggs, TREC #9867. It is a licensed Texas inspection firm, it inspects DFW houses for a fee, and it has an obvious commercial interest in your concluding that a careful inspection is worth paying for.
That disclosure is not a formality. TREC’s advertising rule, 22 TAC §535.221, requires an inspector’s name and licence information where inspection services are referenced, so that readers can weigh what they read against who wrote it. But the rule is a floor, and on this page the floor is not enough.
So here is the fuller version. On every other page the interest is indirect: we describe what an inspector finds in a North Texas house, and being wrong helps nobody. On this page it is direct, because the subject is how to choose a firm like ours — and a guide to choosing an inspector, written by an inspector, is easily built as a list of the author’s own attributes. That version is worth nothing.
What follows instead is the criteria — licence tier, verification, questions, what a fee actually buys — in a form you can apply to anyone. Apply them to us. If we will not answer the questions in the list below, that tells you something.
One more thing, plainly: this site publishes no prices, takes no bookings, and is not a lead-capture form. It exists because the informational layer in this market is almost entirely owned by companies that sell repairs, and a reference written by someone paid to assess rather than repair is a different document. That is the commercial logic. You may as well know it.
The three licence tiers, and what each may do
Texas licenses inspectors in three tiers, and the distinction is not seniority or marketing. It determines who may legally perform your inspection without supervision.
- Apprentice Inspector. Entry level. Must be sponsored; works under the direct supervision of a Professional Real Estate Inspector.
- Real Estate Inspector. Must be sponsored; works under the indirect supervision of a Professional Real Estate Inspector.
- Professional Real Estate Inspector. Top tier. No sponsorship required; may inspect independently.
Only a Professional Real Estate Inspector may perform an inspection independently. That is the consumer-facing point, and the one thing to check before anything else. A Real Estate Inspector may perfectly well inspect your house, under the indirect supervision of a professional inspector who is accountable for the work — there is nothing wrong with that arrangement and plenty of good inspectors work through it. But know which arrangement you are buying, and who the sponsor is, rather than discovering it later.
Note that “Real Estate Inspector” sounds like the senior title. It is the middle one.
What it took to get the licence
The requirements are set at 22 TAC §535.214, and are more substantial than most buyers assume.
Real Estate Inspector. The sponsored path requires 90 hours of qualifying education — Property and Building Inspection Module I (40 hours), Module II (40 hours) and Business Operations and Professional Responsibilities (10 hours) — plus three months of active apprentice status within the preceding twelve months, 25 completed inspections, and the licensure examinations.
Professional Real Estate Inspector. The sponsored path requires 134 hours — the same three modules plus a Texas Law module (20 hours) and a Texas Standards of Practice module (24 hours) — plus twelve months of active Real Estate Inspector status within the preceding twenty-four months, 175 completed inspections, and the examinations.
Both tiers have alternative paths under §535.214(d) and (e) that substitute coursework and the Texas Practicum for supervised time, totalling 114 and 154 hours respectively. Examinations are administered by PearsonVUE; failing three attempts requires additional education before retesting.
Continuing education
Licences renew every two years, and renewal requires 32 hours of continuing education: 24 hours in core subjects — foundations, framing, building enclosures, roof systems, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, appliances, report form writing — and 8 hours of mandatory coursework on legal and ethical matters, the Standards of Practice and report writing. No more than 16 hours may come from any single subject, a deliberate anti-specialisation rule: the state does not want an inspector renewing on thirty-two hours of roofing.
None of this guarantees a good inspection. It does mean the floor is real, and that an inspector who cannot state their tier and licence number is telling you something.
How to verify a licence, in about two minutes
TREC publishes a public License Holder Search. Search the name or licence number and check four things.
- The tier. Apprentice, Real Estate Inspector, or Professional Real Estate Inspector — this determines whether they may inspect independently.
- Status. Active, expired, inactive. An expired licence is not a technicality.
- Expiration date. If it falls before your closing, ask about it.
- Sponsorship. For the two lower tiers, who the sponsoring professional inspector is.
Two points most guides skip. Search the individual, not the company — Texas licenses people, and the person arriving at your house is the one whose record matters. And disciplinary history is public record with TREC, which also publishes licence and complaint count totals.
Financial responsibility, and what it is not
TREC requires professional inspectors to demonstrate financial responsibility — professional liability insurance or equivalent coverage for violations of Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1102, Subchapter G. The amount is set by rule and has been revised, so check the current figure on TREC’s proof-of-financial-responsibility page. More useful than the number is what it is: a statutory minimum for licensure, not an inspector’s actual errors-and-omissions coverage, and not a fund to pay for problems the inspection did not cover. It is not a warranty on the house.
What to ask before you book
Every one of these has a right answer and an evasive answer, and the evasions are easy to spot.
- What is your TREC licence number and tier? Immediate, specific, verifiable. Hesitation here ends the conversation.
- How many inspections do you perform in a day? The most informative question on the list; the reason is in the next section.
- Roughly how long will you be at a house this size? You want to know whether they think in hours or in appointments.
- Will you walk the roof, and what would stop you? Pitch, height, wet or brittle shingles and hail-damaged surfaces are all legitimate reasons not to. A vague answer is not.
- Attics and crawlspaces — entered, or viewed from the hatch?
- May I attend, and will you walk the house with me at the end? The answer should be an unqualified yes.
- When do I get the report, and is it the REI 7-6 form with photographs?
- Which ancillary services do you perform yourself, and which do you refer out? Sewer scope, WDI, pool. Either answer is fine; you need to know how early to book a referral.
- Do you or your company perform repairs on houses you inspect? Assessment and repair are different businesses with different incentives; you are buying the first.
- Can I see a sample report? An anonymised sample tells you more than every review you will read. Read the comments attached to deficiencies, not the count.
What a low price usually indicates, and when it is fine
An inspection has essentially one input: time. Time on the roof, time in the attic, time under the house, time operating every fixture and receptacle, and time afterwards writing comments that mean something. There is no material cost and no way to make the work faster without doing less of it.
So when one fee is markedly lower than another, the difference comes out of something, and there are few candidates: fewer hours on site, thinner reporting, more inspections per day, or lower coverage. That is arithmetic about a service whose only variable cost is hours, not a judgement about anybody.
Which is why “how many inspections do you do in a day?” is more revealing than the fee. An inspector running several appointments a day is working to a schedule that has already decided how long your house gets, and the report will reflect it. The fee is a symptom; the schedule is the thing.
Now the other half, because a page that only warns is as useless as one that only reassures: a lower fee is often perfectly appropriate. A small, recent, single-storey slab house with a simple roof and modern plumbing is genuinely less work than a 1960s two-storey with cast iron drains and three roof planes. Fees that scale with the work are a sign of honest estimating; a flat fee that never varies is the thing to ask about.
And the scale is worth stating once. The fee is a fraction of a percent of a DFW purchase price, and it is the only money in the transaction spent on finding out what you are buying. That is self-serving coming from us, which is why you should test it against the arithmetic.
Why the independent opinion is the one worth paying for
There is a structural asymmetry in this market that explains most of what buyers find confusing about it. A HUD Cityscape chapter on residential foundations cites Witherspoon’s 2000 finding that the Dallas telephone directory listed more than 120 foundation repair companies against roughly 15 geotechnical engineering firms doing residential foundation design work. Those figures are dated and should be read as historical. The proportion is the point: in North Texas, capacity to sell repairs vastly exceeds capacity to independently evaluate whether repairs are warranted.
That imbalance is why so much of what a buyer reads here about foundations, roofs and sewers is published by a party who profits from the answer. It is not usually dishonest. It is that a company installing piers is not a neutral judge of whether you need piers, a roofer’s free inspection is a sales call, and a contractor’s recommendation is an estimate rather than an evaluation.
A licensed inspector is paid to assess and not to repair, which removes that conflict — and is the entire reason this site exists. But it removes only that one. An inspector still has incentives: to avoid liability, to be found by buyers, and to be recommended by agents. The last is worth naming.
The agent-recommendation question
An agent’s recommendation is frequently excellent — they have seen dozens of reports and know who is thorough. It is also true that an agent is paid at closing, and an inspector who repeatedly kills transactions is not the one who gets recommended. Both are true.
The workable approach: take the recommendation, ask for two or three names rather than one, and run each through the licence search and the question list. A name that survives that scrutiny was good information. Friction when you ask for alternatives is information too.
Apply the same procedure here. This page was written by an inspection firm with a licence number you can look up, on a site that names its publisher in the masthead, footer and About page. Look it up.
Common questions
How do I check whether a Texas home inspector is licensed?
Use TREC’s public License Holder Search and look up the individual, not the company — Texas licenses people, not marketing names. Check four fields: the licence tier, the status, the expiration date, and, for the two lower tiers, the sponsoring professional inspector. It takes about two minutes and it is the only verification step on this page that is genuinely non-negotiable.
What is the difference between a Real Estate Inspector and a Professional Real Estate Inspector?
Authority to work alone. A Professional Real Estate Inspector is the top tier, requires no sponsorship, and may inspect independently. A Real Estate Inspector is the middle tier and must be sponsored, working under the indirect supervision of a professional inspector. An Apprentice Inspector is entry level and works under direct supervision. The middle title sounds senior to most readers, which is a common source of confusion — only the professional tier may inspect independently.
Is a cheap home inspection ever a good idea?
Sometimes, yes. An inspection’s only real input is the inspector’s time, so a lower fee usually means less of it — but some houses genuinely need less. A small, recent, single-storey slab house with a simple roof and no pool is less work than a 1960s two-storey with cast iron drains and multiple roof planes, and fees that scale with the actual scope are a sign of honest estimating. The more useful question than price is how many inspections the inspector performs in a day.
Should I use the inspector my real estate agent recommends?
Often, but verify independently. Agents see many reports and generally know who is thorough, so the referral is real information. Agents are also paid at closing, which is a mild structural incentive worth being aware of. The practical approach is to ask for two or three names instead of one, then run each through the TREC licence search and a short list of questions. A name that survives that scrutiny was a good referral.
Does an inspector’s insurance protect me if something is missed?
Not in the way most buyers assume. TREC requires professional inspectors to demonstrate financial responsibility through professional liability insurance or equivalent coverage, but that is a statutory minimum for licensure — not a warranty on the house, and not a fund set aside for defects the inspection did not cover. Confirm the current required amount on TREC’s proof-of-financial-responsibility page. If you want coverage against future failures, that is a home warranty product and a separate decision.