Q: How can I tell whether or not a Home Inspection School is reputable and is not a rip off?

I have checked with the Better Business Bureau, the state and also the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) and none have any information on this home inspection school I found in Marietta, Georgia.

I plan on attending a class with them soon, and was just trying to check it out. Do you happen to have any information on home inspectors and that kind of business and how I might get into it?

Thanks, and have a great day.

A: You’ve checked all the right places: the Better Business Bureau, the American Society of Home Inspectors, and the Georgia Association of Home Inspectors. If no one has heard of this school, then it probably isn’t the place where you want to spend money learning how to be a home inspector.

If you want to be a professional home inspector, you should talk to the folks who head up the most successful practices in Atlanta. Get information from ASHI on which firms are the most reputable, then do an informational interview with the heads of several of the firms to learn how they got started.

Otherwise, you’ll pay good money to an organization that probably won’t teach you what you need to know.