Be on the lookout for these six red flags in the homebuying process. It could save you thousands, a real-estate attorney said.

• Douglas R. Miller has been a real-estate and consumer-protection attorney for more than 25 years.
• He said real-estate agents can work in their best interest, not their clients', if a contract is weak.
• Almost everything is negotiable and buyers should closely read contracts before signing, he said.

Buying a house is already a difficult process, and compounding that with an unhelpful — or even devious — real-estate agent as a co-pilot can add stress and even unnecessary costs. 

Purposefully confusing contracts and some real-estate agents' self-serving motives have some homebuyers getting themselves into tricky positions, said Douglas R. Miller, a veteran real-estate attorney in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.