How large is the lot?

Front porch facing North is what I would say. I like the morning sun and that would make the main living areas facing that direction. It would keep bedrooms dark in morning. Only a problem if you are going to bed early.

we go to bed at 1030pm :)

This is a house for a narrow city lot. Are you on a narrow city lot? Because if not, I would think you'd like a house with lots of natural light flowing in and this house doesn't have it. This house is more like a townhouse.

Additionally this house really has poor flow.

One way I like to check flow is by drawing arrows for some of my most frequent trips throughout the house during the day.

So the Green arrow is bringing groceries in from the garage. No problem there.

The Blue arrow is bringing food from the kitchen to the dining room. Sorry but I wouldn't be comfortable with carrying hot food into the foyer to get to the dining room, especially during a party when people are moving about or guests are entering the house. And it's even worse if someone is carrying food and others are trying to take off coats.

The Red arrow is the arrow getting from the garage to your master closet for those times you go shopping for clothes, etc.

And I did an Orange arrow if you have children.

Because of the way the living room is arranged, it means walking an obstacle course around furniture to get to your master bedroom. If you have young children, imagine trying to do so in the middle of the night if one of them needs you.

The purple arrow is carrying your clothes from the bathroom to the laundry room. Again it's an obstacle course around your living room furniture.

And lastly, I did a yellow arrow showing the route your guests travel to get into the house which is directly past your kitchen. At least the view is of a fireplace and not a wall.

As for asking the question about light, you want most of your windows facing south to southeast for passive solar cooling and heating.

yeah but in this case - that huge 2 story great room window wall would be darn near impossible to manage in the summer without an overhang of about 15 feet. You'd bake - therefore - I think that call simply cannot face South, or West.... My 2 story great room faces east - it works - no overhang. Guessing the limitation above, and the lot limitation will answer the question for the OP on either North or East for that wall to face.

For walls with windows of this height, south facing passive control of summer sun is certainly possible by: 1) design of roof overhang for upper windows; and 2) design of trellis for lower windows. Proper design will also allow for sun penetration for warming in winter. It's all about design...! :-)

That's true about overhangs. LOL. I forget that not everyone has large overhangs.

Thanks cpartist for taking the time to draw that stuff out!. For me personally, some of the issue you mentioned dont really matter...like for instance, we will have a door from closet to laundry which gives us a shortcut. Also the dining will be used as a study and well probably have a small table at the breakfast area for dining. Given the way prices are increasing in the Mckinney/Allen/Frisco area, finding anything half decent that meets our must haves is very rare. This house meets almost all of our requirements so navigation issues are trivial. Thanks for making me think in that direction though!.

Also thanks guys for the tip about the overhang...Ill check if my builder has that as an option

All is solvable through math / geometry, etc. You want the light, but don't want that sun blasting in your house during the summer (adds to cooling load) but... in the winter, when the sun is lower in the sky, allowing it into the house reduces the heating load. (passive heating)

The angles are all known, at every day of the year, and can help you calculate the depth of the overhang that allows sun in winter and blocks it in summer.

And you thought you'd never use trigonometry after high school!

Ah so this is with a tract builder and a tract home? If that's the case how is it possible for you to switch the direction of the house?

Theres an option to mirror the layout

Oh so front and back need to stay as they are. So what direction is the front facing now? Then we can advise you.

Perhaps there are multiple lots available and houses can be sited based on the lot in the neighborhood?

I might have to go for either G1, B19 D20, C1 as they have neighbor on just one side. Corner lots not available .

So for example if I pick D20, I could have backyard facing south and the 8 windows on the side facing east.....So what do you guys think!

I fear, if I chose a lot that has homes on both side, there wont be enough light in the family room (depressing). And theres no way to tell right now if there would be enough light or no as nothing as been built yet.

Also, each home is 10 ft apart from each other and the back yard is 35' deep and 50' wide

Thanks cpartist.... any more votes for D20? Only downside is its a 15k premium..so I might have to forget about certain upgrades in the house..oh well

Are any of the other lots you like not a premium? Although that green space to the east would be a huge selling feature to me.

BTW: I'm in SW FL and my lot is situated the same way except I'm the corner lot. I didn't have a choice though which way the garage faces.

D20 is a great lot, but how busy is the street behind it?

I would think about traffic patterns. Not sure what the rest of the development looks like, but it looks like Adair is main connection to other parts of the development. Could Folsum be the road less traveled?

Maybe check out Google maps to envision what might be built around the development and see which lot best meets your requirements now and in the future.

Location, location, location. You can always add those missed upgrades later on, you can't change the location of your lot (without a significant expense).

So G1 is the only lot you mentioned that does not have a N/S orientation?

I'd go with D20, but then try to negotiate because that back corner may almost back up to a business street. ;-)

What about something like D10 where one side of the house will back up to two other back yards and you are on a side street, farther from the main road than D20?

Until we hear from the OP you are all making assumptions as to what street will be the busiest. For all we know this is phase 2 or 3 of a multi development and these streets are further into the development and even less busy.

Educated guess (with a little help from Google Maps)

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Naphill+Rd,+McKinney,+TX+75070/@33.1477237,-96.6942137,908m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864c16921187638d:0x9d4837075ad56c7b!8m2!3d33.1497718!4d-96.6950613

You know what, I kinda like adkbml's D10 recommendation....I can have the large windows facing north and bedroom facing east....premium might be lower than 15k

I was all set to say definitely D20 and then looked at the google map. It appears that D20 would be very near Colin McKinney Parkway. It appears they are going to extend the parkway and then that lot would be less desirable. Based on that I'd avoid like the plague anything in D, G or C.

Which leaves you B19 which is not great because either your windows will be facing west which will be hot as H, or you'll have your windows facing east and your neighbors.

D10 is bad because you're windows are either facing lots 11 and 12 or lot 9.

Why are the corners not available? Are they all sold? Or are they a premium? How many lots have been sold so far? I ask because if you're one of the first ones willing to put down your money, the builder may be willing to discount the corner by a lot just to have those little red sold stickers on the plot.

We got our corner lot for a much better price because we were the second ones in our small development to put down a deposit. Since then, prices have risen on all the lots, so the fact we were in on the beginning, even though we haven't started building yet, has been a huge bonus to us.

I know you did not ask for any thoughts on the plan, but I had an idea. Overall I think it is well laid out. The thought you mention above about adding a door from the master closet to the laundry room is great. Also, the current dining room will make a great study since it is out of the way. What if you swapped the location of the living room and kitchen? I would keep the existing window locations, providing great natural light to a room that is heavily used.

That's going to be a larger road - just based on it's name / straightness.... I still think it might work if.... there is a fence / noise mitigation planned for the future and you use that as a negotiation point. Based on it's location - you also won't get a lot of neighborhood traffic at that end. Speaking from experience - I am on an "early" corner in our neighborhood of 50 homes and unfortunately - people are pretty speedy by the time they pass my house. (we only have one way in / out, so I see pretty much 40+ homes worth of traffic each day)

Yes if you want something like D20, and if there's noise mitigation, (although you'll still hear it in your backyard to some extent) then don't pay a premium. Let them know you know it's not a premium lot and you want a big enough discount.

I know you did not ask for any thoughts on the plan, but I had an idea. Overall I think it is well laid out. The thought you mention above about adding a door from the master closet to the laundry room is great. Also, the current dining room will make a great study since it is out of the way. What if you swapped the location of the living room and kitchen?

adkbml, my guess is that because this is a tract development with all homes basically the same layout, if the OP asked for that it would be a huge uncharge, if it could even be done. It would not be worth it for resale in the future.

One other thought. Are you sure you want to build vs buying something already built? I ask because if they're continuing to build in the area, and there's lots more land available as it looks like there is from the google maps, then the minute you build, the price of your home goes down in value, not up.

Fine if you're planning on living there for a long time, but if this is a "first" home, you might be better off with a house in a more established neighborhood because you know what the values are, what the schools are like and what the neighborhood is like.

For example in my neck of the woods, we are buying a lot downtown. It is one of 18 lots available for houses. Anything else being built downtown is condos. There is almost no more land available in our zip code to build a single family house which makes our build very desirable because many people want to live walking distance to downtown but not in a condo.

If I went 10-15 minutes east of where I am, I could buy a lot that is 1 acre and build a mansion if I wanted in a planned community of other expensive homes for the same price my small lot downtown is going for. However because land out there is "plentiful", once the houses in that development are finished, they will start another development of large houses on large plots.

The problem is anyone who built early on and now wants to sell out east, is having to sell at a loss because more people want new and with all the available land, they can build new. Yet in the area where I'm building, both new and older homes in excellent condition are selling for the same prices because land downtown is at a premium.

Thanks again guys for your valuable insight...Ive learnt a lot. So seems like I could go for one of the D lots, like D20 and use the proximity to the street as a bargaining chip. The reason I also liked D10 is its a lil bit further from the street, might not have too much of a premium and if I have the windows facing the backyard of the 2 houses next door, there will be about 40' (backyards are about 35' deep) distance between our houses. Also, so far they have sold just 2-3 houses and are in pre-sale stage. Prices are going to go up soon.

The reason the corner lots are not an option is, they are saving them for the larger plans. I did love one of the larger plans but its a bit out side my budget. But I would like to seriously consider it if the house+lot price isn't too much more expensive than the plan I previously posted..This plan has all our must haves, only "con" I see is, all the other bedrooms are on the second floor. Its the kind of house, I would have no reason to move out of (at least for now)

The Mckinney , Tx area is one of the fastest growing areas in the country cause a lot of big companies are moving there.So the prices have skyrocketed in the last 3 years. Even decent looking old houses are selling at way higher price. The community Im interested in has 10/10 schools and close to 2 main freeways/tollways and closer to where are friends stay. I felt lucky to find this community cause everything else we liked was far north where theres more open land but almost rural.

So seems like I could go for one of the D lots, like D20 and use the proximity to the street as a bargaining chip. The reason I also liked D10 is its a lil bit further from the street, might not have too much of a premium and if I have the windows facing the backyard of the 2 houses next door, there will be about 40' (backyards are about 35' deep) distance between our houses. Also, so far they have sold just 2-3 houses and are in pre-sale stage. Prices are going to go up soon.

If they are building screening to negate the noise from the major highway that will be built, and IF you can get the lot for the same price as one of the non premium lots, then yes, I say go for it, but realize as I said that when outdoors, you still might hear the constant traffic from the main road.

Maybe what you need to do is go into one of the developments that have already been built, go to one of the streets that are closest to Colin Mckinney Pkwy (maybe Oakley Road?) and get out of your car and see what the noise is like during the busiest time of the day. That will give you a good idea of what it will be like if and when you're living in your development.

And regarding noise, a lot depends on the rest of the areas too. For example, in my last house, we were two short blocks from the commuter train. Heard the whistle every hour on the hour. However it was an old, established neighborhood, with fabulous schools and every house for miles east of the main thoroughfare through the area heard the train whistle. It didn't affect house values at all. In fact I was able to sell my house in 2010 at the height of the recession for a good price.

Assuming the noise is not a problem for you and it may not be, then you can definitely bargain now since it's pre-sale. But if you're serious about it, you have to be decisive to get the best lot at the best price now.

The Mckinney , Tx area is one of the fastest growing areas in the country cause a lot of big companies are moving there.So the prices have skyrocketed in the last 3 years. Even decent looking old houses are selling at way higher price. The community Im interested in has 10/10 schools and close to 2 main freeways/tollways and closer to where are friends stay. I felt lucky to find this community cause everything else we liked was far north where theres more open land but almost rural.

Sounds like a good buy then. Not sure I'd go for the corner lots though. My feeling is to never buy the most expensive house in the neighborhood. Assuming the noise won't be too bad, I think you have some excellent choices.

Try to avoid west windows being the largest windows because the west sun is brutal.