You're looking at many houses and have just spent a grueling week of desperation house hunting. You've settled on one and called your realtor to arrange a second viewing. Upon entering the house for the second look, you realize that it was not at all as you remembered. In fact, the house you had in mind doesn't exist at all.

After seeing thirty houses in the space of three days, maybe you've began to pick your favorite features from each one and in your overloaded state, have assembled these amenities into one perfect home that only exists in your mind!

Here are some ideas to keep track of your house hunting efforts.

Depending on your stamina and state of mind, you might want to limit the number of homes you see in one day. An experienced agent can easily see two dozen properties and recall the smallest detail of each one. But a homebuyer, especially one just starting out, can easily get confused and overloaded and start 'blending' homes!

You might find it helpful to keep a small notebook with the particulars of each address you visit. Make brief notes of what you liked and perhaps didn't care for. Ask your agent to give you a printout of the features of each home and you could make notes on those sheets as well. Lots of homes for sale offer a brochure detailing the special features, price, terms, and so forth so you can look for these once you arrive at the home.

If you are more visually oriented, ask your agent if you might bring along a Polaroid camera and snap a few shots to remind you of the interior of your favorites as you consider these homes later.

If you have a wants/needs list, prepare it in the form of a checklist and take it along. While you look around, or later in the car, you can run down the list and make a brief record of how the home stacks up against your list.

Talk to your spouse or agent or bring along a friend and chat about what you like and don't like, what appeals to you and what doesn't and so forth. Often, saying these things out loud helps recall details later.