Nothing illegal, but the initial contract was definitely a bad deal for me. The most glaring item was some added in language that translated to if the appraisal comes up short of the contract agreement then the seller will lower the sales price to match the appraisal. In Texas at least an appraiser is chosen somewhat randomly (I'm not sure how, but neither the buyer nor seller get to choose) and they give what is at best a guesstimate.

The other glaring things were everywhere a fee was to be paid, they had checked the seller's box, and that wasn't the kind of market we were in. I had already signed for my next house and I wasn't about to pay all the closing costs when I was the buyer and again as the seller.

In Texas all the real estate agents use the Texas Real Estate Commission's forms for contracts. It has check boxes and fill-in-the-blanks for all the standard things. I found that almost any place this agent had deviated from one of the standard boxes she had tried to put something shady in. Maybe in her experience people representing themselves were less savvy sellers.