I have an extensive 27 year background in new home construction and inspection. I have worked for large national well respected home builders and a few small private builders and without a doubt the answer to the above question is a resounding YES! I have seen just about all of the home building blunders.
The biggest one is as follows: The home was built about 1990, 3000 square feet. It was a high production builder and took about 120 days to build. The home went through the complete build cycle and had a building card signed off at the final inspection as well as quality control inspections signed off on as well. During the "walk through"- WITH NO HOME INSPECTION DONE, the home had no power and the client was told it was an error with the utility company and would be taken care of in the next 2 days and to go a head and close as by Monday the power would be on and there would be no problems. This is where the story gets interesting.
The new home owner showed up with a moving van on Monday after closing in the morning and proceeded to move in. The owner went into the home and turned on the lights but nothing worked. They called the builder, they came over and couldn't figure out why nothing was operational. The electrician was called and he came over and proceed to open up the electric panel. The first look was all good, proper breakers, ect. Still nothing worked. The electrician took the dead front panel off and to his surprise- the entire home had NO electric installed- ZERO wire had been pulled into the home. The Trim crew showed up and ran plugs and switches but decided they were paid to plug and switch not pull wire and that it was someone else's problem. This mentality was used all the way through the electrical system . The really bizarre thing is that the building inspection card was signed off on as well as quality control checks from the builder! The moving van took all the furnishings to a storage facility and the builder was very embarrassed to say the least.
This example above is the extreme but certainly points out the need to have a Home Inspection. This could have been discovered on so many different levels it is not even funny.
I always laugh when someone tells me they aren't going to do a home inspection because after all it's a new home , what could go wrong?
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