What is an NSPIRE score?

How to read the number

• Below 60 is failing. HUD refers the property for enforcement, and the owner must survey and fix the deficiencies — what a failing score sets in motion.
• 60 to 79 passes, but puts the property on a more frequent inspection cycle.
• 80 and above passes with the standard inspection cycle (up to three years between inspections).

The score is built by subtracting points for defects inspectors find — in units, in common areas, and outside — weighted by how much each defect affects residents' health and safety. A unit-level defect (no heat, exposed wiring, inoperable smoke alarm) costs far more under NSPIRE than it did under the old system.

NSPIRE replaced REAC's UPCS score in 2023

From 2000 to 2023, HUD's Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) scored properties under a different standard, UPCS. Those scores look similar — also 0 to 100 — but they carried a letter and sometimes a star: 86c* meant a score of 86, deficiency profile "c", with at least one health or safety deficiency. NSPIRE scores are bare numbers.

The two eras are not directly comparable. NSPIRE weights in-unit conditions much more heavily, so many properties score lower under NSPIRE than they did under REAC without having physically changed. On this site, every score is labeled with the standard it was issued under. Public housing switched to NSPIRE on July 1, 2023; HUD-assisted multifamily followed on October 1, 2023. We measured what the switch did to the numbers across every property inspected under both standards: NSPIRE vs REAC scores.

How often does HUD inspect?

On a risk-based cycle: the better a property scored last time, the longer it waits for the next visit. Under HUD's inspection-scheduling rules, a property scoring 90 or above is inspected about every three years, 80–89 about every two, and below 80 roughly annually. A passing score with an inspection date two or three years back is therefore normal, not a gap in the record.

The gaps are wider than usual right now. HUD suspended routine physical inspections in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and phased them back in from mid-2021, then transitioned both programs to the new NSPIRE standard in 2023 — so a large backlog of properties still shows a newest published score from the late 2010s while inspectors work back through the stock.

Publication adds its own lag: HUD releases inspection results in periodic bulk files — HUD USER's physical inspection scores datasets, updated roughly monthly, per HUD's NSPIRE program. This site re-reads HUD's newest published file weekly, so every date shown here is the newest one HUD has published.

What a score does not tell you

• Inspections can be years apart. A passing score from 2024 says nothing about a pipe that burst last month.
• The score averages the whole property. A building can pass while individual units have serious problems.
• Only HUD-assisted properties are inspected. A market-rate building has no NSPIRE score at all.

Look up a property

Every property HUD has published a score for is on this site — search it by name from the home page, or browse by state or by housing authority. Scores come straight from HUD's published files and are free. If what you are after is your own Section 8 unit's inspection rather than the building's score, that lives in a different system — here is where to look.