First step may be to talk to your bank, credit union or lender if you will be financing the land and house construction. It's not really possible to have a well designed custom home without first knowing and understanding the specific piece of property where it will be located. A thorough site analysis and planning effort should precede the design of any custom home, even homes on very tight and small urban lots.

Good luck with your project!

Thank you! That's helpful! I'm a type A planner and having a step by step plan will help it be less overwhelming!

Land first! There's so much that can and should be done to design the house to fit the specific site, as opposed to just plopping down a pre-designed house that may or may not work well. Topography, views, sun exposure all come into play.

There's also a lot more to it than just buying a pretty piece of property. Find out what kind of restrictions and zoning requirements there are. Is it a flood zone? Will you have to put in a well ($$$) or septic system ($$$)? Will you need a 1/2 mile of driveway ($$$)? Are there 'challenges' (blasting, filling, access, etc.)? It took us a lot of searching to find our land, and an even longer time designing a house to fit it.

The land will shape the design. Virgil and Mushcreek have it right.

What Virgil, Mushcreek and artemis_ma said. Land first. Always.

A planner and having a step by step plan will help it be less overwhelming!

No matter how much you plan, it will still be overwhelming. LOL.

Thanks all. I'm honestly a little relieved the responses have been unanimous! We will focus on land for now, and we are happy where we are so we will wait as long as it takes to find the perfect piece for us.

There are some useful threads here about land and house orientation. One of the most desirable criteria for land is land which allows the main and public open areas of the house to be located facing south in order to achieve positive passive solar strategies.

Good luck on your journey!

Or do you find a designer/builder before finding the land? I don't intend to assert that the design is completed first. Rather, I wonder whether a designer/builder might be able to help you diagnose if the land you intend to purchase is suitable to meet your purposes before you take the leap.

Rycm - that was actually my thought, which prompted the thread. If for some reason the land wouldn't accommodate the home, I'd like to know that.

I don't think I have a huge, unique project coming in. I imagine that it should be relatively easy to formulate it.

Virgil - Yes! I'm intending some form of attached greenhouse, so that will be important when we look plots!

We knew we were looking for a half acre or so infill lot. We're moving to the Chicago area, so we knew a walkout basement was unlikely :-). What we didn't know, until we picked the lot, was its n/s/e/w orientation, the primary approach to the house, the size of the lot, or the required setbacks.

Without that information, it wouldn't be possible to orient living areas to get southern exposure or to know where the garage belongs.

In our case, the house will be on a dead end street, so the approach will only be from the east. Our lot is 150' x 160', so a different house is possible than if it was 100 x 240 feet or 120 x 200. The front of the house faces north, so it's the back of the house that has southern exposure. All of those things matter--and there's no way to know them without having picked the lot.

mrspete is right, however, that knowing what you want to do is part of picking a lot. We knew we wanted a 2500 square foot ranch with a 4-5 car garage. That meant we were looking for around half an acre, and that a square lot would be better for our purposes than a narrow deep lot.

So they aren't independent decisions--but the lot definitely has to come before the plan.

Yes, BethOhio, you've fleshed out my thought very well and summed it up by saying, "they aren't independent decisions".

As you say, if you know you want a big ranch with an oversized garage, you know you'll need at least that half acre ... yet once you own the land and know the n/s/e/w orientation, then you can begin to plan the ranch itself: where will the garage lie? will the living room face the street or the back?

Nothing exists in a vacuum.

So much good advice above. The more topography and unique the design needs, the more important to involve the right designer and builder in the land selection process. Attached greenhouse qualifies, and encourage you to explore detachment for both greenhouse and garage.

I haven't read all the responses so excuse me if this has all been said..

I 100% agree to buy the land first because the house plan may vary depending on the views and shapes.

It could potentially be useful to talk to a builder before the purchase because they may tell you things that influence how expensive a particular lot may be to build on. For example, we paid more for our lot than our neighbor did, but they spent a fortune on their foundation/excavation because the site was more difficult.

If there is a feature or layout that is really important to you, it may be worth discussing a lot purchase with an architect because they may say it won’t fit well on that lot.

Good luck!!