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...
