Newbie with possible red flags on property?

[Melissa Leo]

So my husband and I are brand new, I mean we only started looking at the possibility of buying and renting out properties seriously in the last 2 months. We found a very small house (2 bed 1 bath) house for $47,000. We drove by the house to see it in person first and found several sort of big things wrong: the gravel driveway was more grass than gravel, the back yard was about 20 feet from door right up to railroad tracks, and (BIGGIE) my hubby went around the back and saw char on the back of the house, seemingly from a fairly recent fire (which wasn't disclosed on realtor (dot) com of course). We figured that we could talk down the price for a lot less than they put it up for, since it's only been on the market for 1 day only. I called up the real estate agent listed and it turns out it is the agent's personal property he's put up for sale. He said that since Illinois has a law where you can't broker your own property, we had to find ourselves an agent and he would work through them. 

Firstly, I'm not understanding because isn't he still technically brokering it himself? Secondly, is this a huge red flag? My husband thinks it is and we should just back away from this property. The guy is licensed, it's just his property. But the fact he didn't already have another agent list the property is a little sketchy. I'm too green to know if we should back away. It'd be a really good place, minus the train tracks, but if we put up a fenced deck in the back it'd be easier to rent it out if we do go for it, as it'd be safer for animals and small children. Any advice would be appreciated!