Location - Setting Your Site On a Custom Home

The next step is to select the site on which your home will be built. Site selection or lot selection—the words “site” and “lot” can be used interchangeably—is a very important part of the home-building process because choosing the right site according to objective criteria will help to ensure a successful project.

Some custom-home buyers purchase a site or sign a contract to purchase a site before they establish a budget or engage the services of a builder. Taking the steps in this order isn't necessarily fatal to the project, but it can cause serious problems in the design and cost estimating stages of building your home.

The risk in securing a site before you select a builder is that the site may prove overly expensive to build on due to hidden factors. Doubtful soil conditions, the unavailability of utility services, easements or other restrictions on building might not be apparent to you.

If You Own a Site

If you already own a site, you may want to hire a builder to check the building conditions as soon as possible to avoid any surprises. In the worst-case scenario, a site can be so ill-suited for construction that building on it would be cost prohibitive.

Site selection criteria include the size of the lot, restrictive covenants, the availability of utility services, soil conditions, topography, solar orientation, the location of electrical power lines and the proximity of the site to heavily trafficked highways, railroad tracks or an airport.

Design Aspects

It's natural and appropriate for you to have some ideas about the type, style and size of the home you want to have built; however, many aspects of the final design will be determined by the site. That's why designing your home most likely should be delayed until after the site is chosen. The location of rooms within your home, the orientation of your home with respect to sunlight, the location of the driveway, whether a walk-out basement will work and other design elements will be affected by the site.

Articles Courtesy of HomeBuilder.com