Finding a house...

FINALLY! Realtors are getting back to us.
Now tell me, since I'm clueless--how long did it take you to figure out you were in love with a house you saw, what pitfalls should we be looking for, what questions should we ask? Did you call in reinforcements with more experience to make sure that you weren't getting the shifty from your realtor? I honestly have NO IDEA what to look for other than 'meets my needs' or 'doesn't meet my needs' you know?

We're making a spreadsheet to compare houses to decide if we want to look at them and/or what we think of them once we look at them.

And how long did it take you to close on your house? We have less than 3 weeks and I'm afraid we'll be so caught up in just buying a place that we might choose the wrong one because we're so pressed for time.