Started planning 15 years before building. Didn't start pricing and budgeting until 2 years before.

Consider the cost of the mortgage. Right now (but not forever) interest rates are VERY favorable.

So, not only will there be a building cost increase, but a lending cost increase to weigh against saving more.

Do you already have your land? I believe a house should fit the land, so you can only plan up to a certain point before you have the land.

About two years, with one year being fairly conceptual and one in nailing down all of the details and writing the specifications.

dekeoboe - no, we are currently looking for property to buy. I do agree, though, that the house should fit the land; right now, I'm starting to think just more in regards to which house style I like (Colonial Saltbox), how big it might be (2000-2400 sq ft), and collecting images of rooms and floor plan aspects I like. But the actual layout of the house will most definitely depend on the property layout, which way the driveway comes in, where we can get the best morning light, and how to get the most shade from the late afternoon, hot summer sun!

I think realistically we are 3-5 years out from breaking ground, but in that time we should have the property bought and paid off and 20-40% saved for a down payment on the house (depending on how much prices and interest rates go up).

From zero inclination about moving from coast to coast, to instantly taking a decision to move, reviewing lots on the intenet for less than three weeks and deciding on seven lots to see in person . Another two weeks to actually flying across, looked at the lots, decided which one we loved. Signed contracts withing further eight weeks and closed in another three. Sixteen weeks from an instant decision to actually closing. Then waited a year while we planned the moved and another five to six months before construction starts. Total twenty months from concept to stating construction which will take 18 months to complete. From the onset I knew exactly what I wanted and was quite amazed I located a perfect lot (for what we wanted) so fast. I call it fate.

About 2 years before we broke ground.

We bought our land in late 2012 and didn't hire an architect until January 2014 and we are currently done clearing and working on site prep for the foundation. I've spent years looking at house plans and figuring out what I like. When we hired the architect it was nice because we knew what features we wanted and he was able to design the perfect house for us and customize it for our building site.
I personally say it's never to early to dream and start gathering ideas of what you like but I would hold off on buying anything until you have your land :)

We bought our land in 2006, and broke ground for the barn in 2011. The house was started in 2012. For the five years, I studied the land, learned about general house construction, researched energy-efficient building, and drew a thousand floor plans. It's not to soon to learn about the latest advances in energy efficiency so that you know what you want when the time comes.

Lots of things can change, though. Just during our build, I watched building supplies go up, back down, and now up again. There have been changes in building codes, and that will continue. Some parts of the country keep up with the codes, making changes every three years. Other areas are more casual, and a very few places don't enforce codes at all. Some of the recent changes include septic systems, energy efficiency, and safety (such as residential sprinklers). All of these new rules can add significantly to the cost of a build, so it's a good idea to see if your area is one of the ones on the cutting edge.

I think if you start tuning into the building trade in general now, it will help you make decisions when the actual start date arrives. I wouldn't get too hung up on the house design, other than to get some ballpark ideas to make sure the project is even feasible.

Hahaha! DH and I knew where we wanted the house and how we wanted it set into the hill with a walkout basement before we were married....we didn't move in until we'd been married 33 years! Actual time spent designing with architects was 7 years....

Heck Annie 7 years. I stopped calling our homes dream homes and this one will definitely be our 4th and last though each time it gets bigger and better; my wife disagrees but loves it each time it's done. Well the only part left in designing is our master bath and WICs; perhaps it's my task for early today. Check the link below. WIll be posting more design pics soon.

Here is a link that might be useful: Latest project

We spent 3 years looking for property, and the next 4 working on house plans (2 years attempting ourselves, 1 year wasting money on a poor house designer, and another 'taking back' our design and making it both affordable and truly 'us').

Now we're just waiting for the builder's estimates, with fingers crossed to build this spring! (Wish us luck!)

Our process was very quick. We had no idea we even wanted to go the new build route until we were scoping out neighborhoods and ended up touring a model home of a big national builder. That sparked the building idea and less than 7 months later we'd signed a contract with a custom builder in the same area. Broke ground about 5 months after that. If you know you want to build, it doesn't hurt to look around and figure out what you like. There are so many decisions to make and it can be time consuming and overwhelming so it helps to be ahead of the game. If you are a few years out from building be prepared for prices, and what's in style changing though.

5 years day dreaming and figuring out what we wanted. Research solar orientation, feng shui, high efficiency framing, plumbing layouts, and check out all your friends houses, etc. All that planning made it alot easier to figure out a floor plan that would have everything we wanted and work with the property when we bought it. After that it goes so fast and decisions that were made on the spot impacted something else, but it was okay because I felt like I had most of it figured out ahead of time. I think the extra research time also made me aware of options I did not know existed.
I wouldnt waste time getting actual bids for cost yet though since prices change alot in 5 years. Or getting your heart set on any finishing products since they discontinue lines all the time, and you never know if something you love will go on sale and be in your budget later on. Good luck!

We bought our lot January 2014, began working with architect in April, and broke ground in September.

Couldn't find the perfect retirement house to buy., we had been looking for 2 yrs off and on, so we decided to build. Decided to look into building in June 2014, picked our plan and contractor in July 2014 and broke ground beginning of Nov 2014. It will be done around May or June of 2015.

We put a low ball offer in on our dream property, which was bank owned. NEVER expected it to get accepted. We closed in December, other house sold much faster than we thought it would, closed in January. I've been planning since last September, but now my husband is finally getting on board so a lot of compromise and change. ;) We are hoping to break ground in April. Way too fast IMO but we decided to do house before barn so it is what it is!! I think it's never too early to figure out what you want!!

Put our prior home on the market June 1st and started looking at existing homes over the next several months (wife and I are both Realtors) and really wasn't finding anything we liked. Got our home under contract in October with a January 4th closing and REALLY started looking at existing homes and still didn't see any we liked so we started looking at land. Found 30 acres in late October and purchased the land with a January 5th closing. Bought our house plans in early December and started getting estimates...broke ground on January 6th and was in our home in August. I was owner/builder and everything went very smooth but I had 20 years prior experience in the construction business....good contractors/tradesmen made my job easy though.

I've always wanted to build a house . . . but the time hasn't been right. At this moment, we live in a house we don't really like . . . but it's big and in exactly the place we want our girls to go to school. We intend to retire to the country . . . but we can't do that 'til our youngest finishes high school.

So in a way we've been planning this forever, and we've had our land for years . . . but we've just become SERIOUS about it in the last year or so.

We have another year or two 'til we'll be ready to break ground. At that point our youngest will be halfway through college, and I anticipate our oldest will be married by that point.

I think we've done well by having so much lead time. Our opinion on "must haves" vs. "would be nices" has solidified. We know now that we're 100% solid on a downstairs master . . . but we're pretty flexible on a one-story vs. two-story, and we've actually decided we want a smaller kitchen than we wanted originally. And only ONE eating area indoors, but a large outdoor entertaining area. It took us a while to determine what we really want, but I have no doubts now.

And, of course, another benefit is that by NOT rushing in, we have the cash to pay for it all!

i looked at plans and saved some for over 20 years before we bought the land we finally built on
we purchased 4 plots of land in 2 states before we
bought the land we ended up building on we still own 2 extra plots..
when we finally decided where we wanted to live, it took about 5 minutes to choose the plan we wanted we made about 75 percent of the "decorating" decisions well before the builder started (lighting was the most difficult)

We bought our land in 2007 and broke ground September 2014. We have 2 months left in our build and take ownership in April 2015.

Oh I started "dream planning" several years ago. I used Pinterest to pin and save all the things I hoped to one day have in my house - ya know, nifty spots for outlets, kitchen organization, laundry chutes, etc. I had a pretty specific layout that I wanted, so I searched houses that had similar layouts and played with them. About 2 years ago, I took all of my ideas to a contractor who also draws up plans (35+ years) and asked him to make the inside of one house look like the outside of another house. Ha! It took him a LONG time, but he made it work. Now that we have the plans, I am in MAJOR planning mode, but I'm Type A so I love to organize and plan. I have a binder with all the rooms organized and my favorite "pins" that I want included in the house printed out and have written notes beside each one. I think I scare my contractor. Ha! :) Anyway, we will start our dirt work as soon as the rain lets up - so hopefully in the next week or two!

I will say, going back and looking at the things on Pinterest that I pinned several years ago, my taste has changed significantly - so not all of it was as useful as I wish it would've been. Ha! :)

Thanks everyone!!

jkdavis - you sound just like me! I have several Pinterest boards for my dream house (floor plans, general ideas, lighting, furniture, etc.) and was just starting to organize some of them to print and put in a binder. I also love to plan - everything and anything - and I can't seem to shut it off. I also love to play around with floor plans. I just made a comment the other day about, "When we build, I wonder if the contractor will have ever worked with someone like me? Hope I don't scare him!"

gscott991 - did you have an idea what it would cost to build when you purchased your property? Part of the reason I already reached out to a contractor was because I don't want to buy property and then find out we'd never be able to afford to build. Granted, it all depends on what you want and if you only have $100K, you build a small house - but as a young couple, who will be having children in the next few years, I want a comfortable sized house for a growing family. Nothing huge and no high-end finishes - in fact we much prefer a rustic, Colonial style and hope to save some money doing all the finish work ourselves. And while we plan on our children sharing bedrooms (boys in one, girls in another ... though we have no children yet), we do want a downstairs flex/guest bedroom and maybe another upstairs; we love entertaining and having out-of-town guests. We also want this house to be our last one, so a downstairs bedroom (for when we are too old to go up and down the stairs) is a must, but I don't like having the master downstairs. So right now, I'm estimating 2000-2400 sq ft, with small bedrooms, a large kitchen/dining room (just one room), and a medium-sized living room. The kitchen is the most important room to us, so we want it to be the biggest. I hope in 3-5 years, we can still afford that.

MrsPete - definitely agree that what we feel we need has changed even in this past year, and I'm certain when we finally do build, we'll know exactly what we need, where we want to splurge and where we know we can be stingy. I'm hoping it will make the actual building/planning process easier.

Naween - Good luck!! Sorry to hear about that designer wasting your time. I've been reading these forums for a long time and from everything I've read, I think we'll spend the money on an architect. Even though I love playing around with house plans, and could hand over a few attempts of my own, I don't know housing codes and while I might THINK something could work on paper - in the real world, who knows? ha! It'll be a big chunk of change, but I hope that accounting for it ahead of time will take out some of the sting.

MushCreek - your last paragraph is exactly what I'm hoping to do! I definitely don't plan on having a finalized house plan until we're ready to build, but in the meantime, I'd like to make sure that a ~2400 sq ft, two story (with unfinished attic and basement), saltbox (ie., single roof line) will be feasible when the time comes. But I'm dreaming in generalized ideas right now, because your'e right - a lot WILL change in 5 years.

I think the sq' estimates from the builder are a good way to help you decide if you can afford to build. They're going to be vague enough that I don't think it's going to be too different in 5 years. Yes, things will go up, some things will get cheaper, and what you can afford will be higher. The ballpark isn't going to change, even if the score does.

Beyond that, you need a property before you can start planning. Even a style of house. I had my heart set on something traditional. Then we bought our lot, and everything around us is uber modern, and a traditional house would have just looked odd.

I don't think it's ever too early to get educated, though. Understand building science so you know the questions to ask your contractors. Understand building styles, so when you pick something, you know it's the right one for you. And why one style appeals to you and another doesn't.

Thanks amberm - one thing that maybe I should have mentioned sooner is that we will not be purchasing a lot but are looking for acreage in very rural northern Michigan. The styles of houses nearby is irrelevant as they will be both out of sight and quite a distance away if we get what we want (and we won't settle for less). We eventually want to also build a barn and have a small family farm, so we're looking at 40-80 acres, either entirely or at least mostly wooded. We do not want the house to be seen from the road. But I'm glad to hear that the builder's sq ft estimate should give us a very rough idea of what we can afford when it comes time to build. Thanks for the encouragement!