When you sell your home, chances are it will be inspected by a professional real estate inspector and surprising defects will be discovered.  When do you want to be surprised?  In escrow after you invested time and money to find a buyer, or before you see the first potential buyer?  The more you know about what you are selling, the more negotiating advantage you have.  Your asking price can be based on your awareness of your homes’ condition. You won’t be blindsided in the middle of the transaction. 

You say you live in the home so of course you know its condition?  That is rarely the case. That new water heater you had installed 10 years ago isn’t new anymore.  Time and weather have had an effect on your roof.  When was the last time you went into the attic and took a good unbiased look?  Even professional real estate inspectors hire another inspector when buying property for themselves.

You could wait for the buyer to hire an inspector.  Hey, let them pay for it!  But beware, it may cost you.  It takes a lot of effort to get a sales agreement signed. If the inspection turns up undisclosed items, the buyer will want to negotiate a new deal and that second sales agreement may be even harder to achieve than the first. At best, problems uncovered by the buyer's inspector can cause delays in closing, and you may have to arrange for repairs at the last minute, or take a lower price.

Find out about any defects and get them corrected in advance or present the items "as is" and reflected in the asking price.  One of the key benefits of having the inspection done early is that if anything is discovered that should be repaired, you can have the repairs done on your own terms, on your own schedule.   You could save thousands by simply being able to shop around and get competitive bids from contractors, rather than being forced into a "rush job" at the last minute.

If you decide to simply offer the property “as-is” without any repairs, your knowledge of the homes’ condition is the key to a successful transaction. The buyer is less likely to walk away from the deal if the conditions are known before an offer is made. Getting a seller’s inspection will make the entire sales process easier and the first offer you accept can proceed to closing without unnecessary delays or costly surprises.