Draw Inspection Field Guide: House Map and 7 Stages

A draw inspection is a site visit that verifies construction progress before a lender releases the next portion of a construction loan. The inspector documents what is actually built — usually with dated, geo-stamped photos and a percent-complete assessment against the budget — so the lender has documented evidence of work in place before funding.

The inspector confirms the work claimed in the draw request is complete: the right stage is finished (slab, framing, dry-in, rough-ins, finishes), the work matches the plans and budget line items, and there are no red flags like stalled activity, missing materials, or work covered up before verification. The report typically includes photos of each side of the structure and each funded line item.

Residential draw inspections commonly run in the range of roughly $100 to $300 per visit depending on the market, travel distance, and report requirements, and the fee is usually passed through to the borrower. Rural or hard-to-cover areas tend to price higher because inspector coverage is thinner. RAZE charges a flat $125 per single-family inspection at any U.S. address, or $25 per request with your own inspector (getaraze.com/pricing).

The site visit itself usually takes 15 to 45 minutes for a residential project. What matters more to builders is turn time — the elapsed time from the draw request to the delivered report — which ranges from same-day to several business days depending on the inspection provider and coverage in the area.

Most residential construction loans use 5 to 8 draws tied to milestones such as slab, frame, dry-in, rough-ins, finishes, and final. The exact schedule is set in the loan agreement, and each draw is typically conditioned on a passing inspection of the prior stage.

Draw inspections are performed by third-party inspection firms, independent field inspectors, appraisers, or in some cases the lender's own staff. Lenders increasingly use managed inspection networks so they can get consistent, geo-stamped reports in every market where they lend.

Most draw inspectors come from construction, appraisal, insurance adjusting, or home inspection backgrounds, and requirements vary by state and by the firm you work with. The core skills are recognizing the stages of construction, photographing a site thoroughly, and completing a percent-complete report accurately — the field guide and glossary on this page cover the vocabulary you will use every day.

A home inspection evaluates the condition and defects of a completed home for a buyer. A draw inspection verifies construction progress for a lender — it answers "is the work funded actually built?" not "is this house in good condition?" Draw inspections are shorter, repeat at each milestone, and report percent complete rather than deficiencies.