What a failing NSPIRE score means
Below 60 is failing. Right now 1,503 of the 34,922 scored properties in HUD's current file are below that line. Here is what a failure sets in motion, and what the number does and does not tell you about a place to live.
The three bands, and where the stock sits today
- 80 and above passes on the standard cycle, with up to three years before the next inspection. 30,329 properties are here, the large majority of the stock.
- 60 to 79 passes, but on a tighter leash: HUD inspects these properties more often. 3,090 properties.
- Below 60 fails. 1,503 properties, roughly one in twenty-three of everything HUD currently publishes a score for.
These counts move as HUD publishes new files; this page recalculates them from the current file, and only over properties still in it. A number this page counted last month may have been re-inspected since.
What HUD does after a failure
A failing score is not just a bad grade; it changes the property's relationship with HUD.
- The owner has to fix what was found. For a failing HUD-assisted multifamily property, HUD refers the matter for enforcement and requires the owner to survey the deficiencies and correct them, with the survey and repairs documented back to HUD.
- Inspections speed up. A property scoring below 80 is already on the roughly annual cycle, so a failing property should show a follow-up inspection in its history rather than a three-year gap. A failing score followed by silence is worth noticing.
- For public housing, the score rolls uphill. A development's physical score feeds its housing authority's own assessment by HUD, so failing developments drag their agency's standing down with them. An authority's page here shows how many of its developments are failing at once, which distinguishes one troubled building from a portfolio-wide problem.
What a failure does not automatically mean: the building closes, the subsidy ends, or tenants must leave. Enforcement is a process between HUD and the owner, and most failing properties are re-inspected and recover. You can see that pattern in the score histories on this site; a standard change in 2023 also moved some properties across the line in both directions.
What a failing score does not tell you
- It averages the whole property. A 55 does not mean every unit is in bad shape, and an 85 does not mean yours is fine. The score is the building's weighted total, not a unit verdict. If your own Section 8 unit is the question, that inspection lives in a different system.
- It has a date on it. Conditions change faster than inspection cycles. Always read the score next to its inspection date, which every page here shows.
- Very low scores are real scores. HUD publishes NSPIRE scores all the way down to 0. They look like data errors; they are not.
- Absence of a score is not a failure. It means HUD has not published an inspection for that property, nothing more.
See where the failing properties are
Every state page shows its cities with a count of properties below 60, every housing authority page does the same for its developments, and each failing property's own page carries its full history. Search a building by name from the home page.