> Home inspectors are a borderline scam. In my experience they never find any of the real problems and only surface superficial stuff that should be obvious even to a layman.
In most states, home inspectors are licensed and insured professionals so they can be held liable for obvious omissions from their reports. But there are a lot of holes in the system, and there's no clear guide for inexperienced home buyers to vet inspectors.
The benefit of a good inspector is that they aren't the buyer and thus have no temptation to overlook things the buyer might miss. A good inspector is thorough and will take several hours to perform an inspection of even a small home.
If you can find a very reputable inspector, it's generally a good idea to use them both when selling or purchasing homes. Inspecting your home before sale can identify issues you can quickly address and it gives comfort to buyers to see an inspection report on the counter when they do a walk through.
I got burned with a home purchase early on in my life because I used my realtor's inspector who wasn't licensed in my state. When we later discovered a foundation issue we had no recourse because the inspection report had a disclosure on it.
A general problem in the US is that it's mostly ok to be misleading as long as you have a disclaimer, and that disclaimer doesn't necessarily have to be upfront or obvious. As a result of have a lot of "Administrations", "Bureaus", and "Authorities" that superficially appear to be governmental or reputable but turn out to be scams.