Where is that done? I've bought in two states and sold in one and typically the way it's done is you have a contingency in the home sale that lets you walk if you don't like what your inspector finds. A seller could theoretically do their own but there's little upside, since this just creates a record of any issue that turns up that you now can't claim ignorance of.
In Oakland at the moment the sellers typically get the inspection done, provide the report in the disclosure packet, and then expect an offer with inspection contingency waived.
On the downside, there are the obvious risks in the structure of the incentives - in principle these may be sufficiently mitigated by the need to maintain a good reputation among buyers' agents; in practice they may not be.
On the upside, having had the opportunity (and motivation) to read many tens of such reports meant that I was (I believe) much better at reading them - and had a sense of what was typical amongst the homes I was looking at - by the time I read through the report for the house I wound up buying, and there haven't been any surprises so far...
