Have you ever owned a home before? If not, why would you want to start by building a home and not buying a house already completed? Or even one that needs renovating?

You might want to ask this in the building forum. Also. I am not trying to offend you - there is a building a home dummies book. I don't know how good it is but it might help you a bit as you start exploring the idea. Good luck.

Christopher, we would like to find a lot and builder. there just isn't a house we like on the market at the moment. We can afford a big house with our combined income and low debt to income ratio, but those houses are too big and ornate for us. We are open to buying a fixer upper, but again, haven't found anything we like. It would be nice to build to suit our taste and lifestyle, so I wanted to explore that option. You mentioned you built a modular home. Can you share your process of finding the right company and contractor?

Hang out in the Building a Home forum and read the entire compendium of posts. That will be a good foundational education into what's involved, the potential pitfalls, and how to do it successfully.

Do you also have more than the $50k in the bank in terms of savings and retirement? Many times there are surprises in building that are not covered under the construction loan. You want to make sure you have adequate reserves so you don't wind up house poor.

We found a plot where the builder will build a custom home and I've spent the past year designing the house, etc. Hoping to start building before the end of April but who knows. You can read about it HERE. Second post down has all the links.

I second the idea of reading through as many of the threads in the building a house forum as you can. I would also look into the other forums here too if they will relate to your build. Things like the flooring forum, electrical, appliances, kitchen, laundry, windows, etc.

Additionally, I'd look into reading books on the subject of building.

Maybe I'm a slow learner, but I wouldn't have wanted to build a house as our first house. You don't know what you like until you live with something for awhile. We're on house #5 (our forever house) and have learned from each previous house.

I'm talking about room and house size, window orientation and size, location of bedrooms, kitchen presentation, garage and lot size... some things you can change, like flooring and paint, but not other choices made on a build.

I have to agree if this is your very first house. There are so many things that one only really learns about as one lives in different houses. What I thought was important for a home in my first house, I have since found out isn't important at all. Things I didn't think would make much difference turned out to be the most important. All this I learned from living in several houses before building.

I have to agree with cpartist.

This is your first home, not your dream home. Your tastes change as you get older, so make that dream home a goal.

Here's what we did when we went house hunting for the very first time.

We took out a sheet of paper and drew a line down the center. On the left side we wrote everything we wanted in our first home. A genuine wish list. Number of bedrooms, garage size, yard size, location etc.

On the right side we listed the things on the left side that we could not accept a home without.

A nice big two story foyer is great, until you realize that light fixture has to be dusted. We looked at things like how wonderful are a lot of outside steps up to the house when we're carrying groceries.

You have to figure the property taxes into your monthly payments, something beginners never think of. A $6,000 property tax is $500 a month.

Gwen, I would start by finding a lot that meets your needs and has building restrictions that you can tolerate. (We shopped around for 2 years to find one with none as the idea of conforming irritated us to no end!)

Look through floor plans and see what you like about them, what you hate, and then cut them apart into rooms and try to assemble them into what makes sense for how you live. I disagree with the others above who say you truly have to 'live' in a home to know what you like or don't like - visualization can work just as well.

Take note of how YOU live, not how others assume you do. Eg, I put a window behind my bed (often frowned upon) because I HATE sunlight in my bedroom, and so can cover the window with floor-to-ceiling light-blocking curtains, and a fancy bedcrown, and have it look like its just a decorated wall, rather than a friggin window. We also made the walk to the kitchen farther than most people, because for us, carting groceries 30 ft is easy. We added a ramp instead of stairs to our garage-house entrance so that we can even use a wheeled cart in the future if need be.

Meet with your bank for a prelim discussion on how builder mortgages work - it can be confusing, so starting early makes it easier.

Good luck!

When my wife and I built a custom home, she graphed it to scale on graph paper and then cut out, to scale, pieces of sticky paper, to represent all of the furniture. She used 3M Sticky Notes for this, and was able to move the "furniture" around the rooms, to make certain that the rooms were laid out correctly and were of adequate size.

I also agree, that some people do not need to live in a couple homes first before knowing what matters to them most. Most probably do, but not all.