I'll tell you right now, building is an emotional and physical (lots of hours) demanding experience but an excellent one.

I started by purchasing the lot I wanted first. I then asked people who has recently built houses (whether I knew them or just stopped in and knocked on the door) and asked about their experience and who they used.

I called my builder up one day and we discussed what I was looking for and a few rough drawings I had in mind. He met me at the property and told me his opinion on what would fit. My builder actually designed my house for me in a 3d program. It changed quite a few times from the original (give a few feet in one room to make another bigger.

Then we discussed budget. This is a big deal. Make sure you have good ideas of the quality of finished you want!! Oil rubbed bronze costs more than brushed nickel, select and better hardwood with no knots costs more than #1 or #2 common hardwood, etc. So your budget can be more accurate.

To give you an example, select red oak quotes I got ranged from $4-$5 a Sq ft whereas #1 common was $3-$3.50. Over 800 Sq ft. This is a $800-$1500 price difference which can make or break a budget and fast.

Since I've been all over the place, first step is find your lot. Then, find a builder you can work with. Personality similarities and differences between you and your builder make or break a build.

Thanks Guitarman! We are familiar with basic costs of finishes, and won't have a problem going with a less expensive option and plan to replace it in the future. We are really interested in getting a good quality foundation, and strong 'bones'.

I really don't feel comfortable buying a lot without knowing what we're going to do with it... I'm a little Type A that way I guess. I want to see the house plans, the lot, know the builder, and have the financer pre-approve all of it before we begin.

How did you find your builder? From the neighbors? Our 'neighbors' homes are way above our budget. (A private lane that 3 homeowners built millon-dollar homes on the cul-de-sac. There is an 60's/70's ranch that was pre-existing acoss the stress, but the road is heavily wooded and ravenous so it's difficult to see each other.)

Agree with guitarman - ask friends & stop by newly constructed homes.

The problem with asking builders for references is you will only talk to very satisfied customers. A builder that has unhappy customers is not likely to give out those references. My build is 8 months behind schedule and there have been some major problems that could have been prevented - suspect my builder will not be using me as a reference.

lethargo- Although a lot of architects will tell you not to design to a lot, your location and orientation is probably the most important decision you make at the beginning of the process. What type of view do you want? What privacy level do you need? Do you need a heat conserving or a heat shedding orientation?
You say you have a lot in mind. We had some soil engineering studies done on ours before building. And our lot dictated to some degree, the floorplan of our house. The slope and the soil dictated the foundation.
So, what I am saying is... you can take a floorplan you love and THEN find the right lot for it, but you may have to give up a certain neighborhood, schools, access to work, stores, etc. in exchange for a lot that works for your preconceived floorplan. Or you can pick a lot with a view or other desirable attributes and find a floorplan that suits the location. That is what we did.

Before you have a basic floorplan, no GC will be able to give you an intelligent answer to how much your house will cost. A good place to start is online looking at sites like eplans. I bought a lot of plan books from discount bookstores, looking at features that spurred my imagination. Then, we visited models in our area- just to get an idea of how much visual space we enjoyed... 10 foot ceilings as compared to 8 foot ceilings for example.

It is overwhelming, to be sure. I am fighting fires this morning as we speak and it's been a 3 year process to get to this point, where the driveway is being poured.

Like musicgal, we did our floor plan to our lot. We knew exactly where we wanted to be and designed our house to fit.

Even the "perfect" house can be tainted by its location. In my opinion

Not all house plans are 'quite large', so you need to explore further. I believe in building to the lot, to an extent. For instance, our property has a mountain view in the back. We designed the house to take advantage of that by having the living room, dining room, and kitchen across the back. I got some of my inspiration looking at waterfront plans, as they are usually laid out to take advantage of the view being in the back.

Our land is sloping, so a walk-out was the path of least resistance. We would have had to bring in a lot of fill to make it a slab home, and if we went crawl space, it would have been as tall as a basement anyway.

We like morning sun in the kitchen and master bedroom, so those are on the east end of the house. You can see how the land made a lot of decisions for us.

I had the luxury of living (camping, actually) for about a year before siting the house. This is great if you can view the lot at different times of the year. It's surprising at how far the sun swings around from winter to summer. We also built for the climate, and oriented the house for the best exposure. You can design a beautiful house, but if the back is solid windows and faces west, it will be unbearable in the summer, not to mention high utility bills.

It can take a long time to really design the right house. I worked on it for several years before making a commitment, and even then, compromises have been made.

Hire an architect.

the lot (i call it the place) is important to me as a starting point
if you don't have that, you don't have a way to figure out how you want your house oriented, whether or not you want 1 or two story, even the style of the home

of course you could pick the plan first and manage to find a piece of property that will suit that plan - depends on the available property around you i guess

We were in this exact same position. We had a friend who was a builder and we tried to use him. He had a draftsman that we didn't have to pay for who started designing the plan but we weren't a priority so it was taking wayyyyy too long. So we ditched that and we were left trying to find someone else. Looking back, here's what I would have done:
Find a place you would want to build, so you have that cost and someplace you can show a builder when he's estimating costs to build.
Find a house plan and exterior style that is close to what you want.
If you have no one to refer a builder to you then look into your local Parade of Homes. There are builders building a wide range of homes, pick some builders that is building the quality of home you'd want built. (our parade of homes has a website with all the previous homes on it that we used b/c there wasn't one scheduled at the time we were looking)
Arrange a meeting with the builders you find. Show them the house plan and the place you want to build. We did this and if they are experienced enough they can give you a pretty good ballpark. We had the house plan that our friend had come up with and a list of features we wanted and all the builders we met with told us what price range that floor plan would be and they were all in the exact same range. The prices they gave us was almost dead on detailed price that our friend had given us. So we believed the price they just pulled off the top of their head.
We talked to 4 builders. One was referred to us by our son's teacher.
It was really eye opening talking to them... One of them, while I'm sure he could have built a good home, he was a glass is half empty kind of guy, always pointing out the obstacles and not the solutions of how to do it. We decided to not go with him b/c it would have really added to the stress.
Another builder who had been in the parade of homes was a realtor just starting out in the building industry and while he had built a beautiful home in the parade of homes, we couldn't choose him b/c we had already dealt with a builder like that for 8 months and couldn't handle the stress of it again.
Another builder we talked to was really great, he showed us his own home and it was great. We could have used him but he wanted us to hire an architecture and we didn't want to do that b/c with the first guy we worked with his draftsman would come up with a plan, our friend would price it and it'd be way over budget so the draftsman would change some stuff, and it would get priced and it was still way over. (8 months of that) So it just didn't work b/c the draftsman just draws what you tell him to they don't know how to design things to save money.
The builder we ended up with had been in the business 25 years, he drew up the plan very close to what we wanted but in an economical way. He had a very easy going personality and very customer service oriented. We threw out tons of ideas, like us doing some of the work and stuff and he was open to all of it. He also happened to be the one our son's teacher referred to us. He's been very easy to work with esp when problems come up or we want to change things. He's added a bunch of stuff we didn't pay for. Some upgrades we wanted after we signed the contract he's done at cost. He's experienced and established enough to be really easy to work with but he's not so big that we don't get to work with him directly. (and therefore get lots of discounts).
We are a month away from moving in and the house has turned out way better than I had expected.

I made the mistake of starting with the plans...designed something I *loved* and spent awhile looking for land. When I finally got my lot, about a month into wandering through it, I discovered it was NOT suited to my plans. At ALL.

So I threw out my plans.

Cleared the lot, put stakes up all over it, stood in my "imaginary" dining room, walked around my imaginary bedroom, and was slowly able to visualize what type of house I both loved and the land loved.

Because of the vast clearing, the bedrock, the difficulty with digging, a bungalow just would never have worked. Because of the huge trees, I was able to do a lovely a-frame to capture light. It's angled perfectly to harness the heat in the wintertime. Something that might not have worked as well if it was on barren prairie with the wind whipping across it.

Once the plans were drafted and staked, I took it around getting price quotes. Spec'd out EVERY time for the house, specifically which flooring, which lights, everything. Like Tulips, cost can swing hugely.

From there, the bank to finance it. Then I built. I was lucky, I did the work myself, only had a couple contractors to deal with.

But I started with that piece of land. Even spending 5 years clearing and surveying and just being on it helped HUGELY to make the house that finally got built perfectly suited to it. Couldn't be happier.