Well...how large is your family? Yes, you do need to have a reasonable budget range in mind. Talk to your banker about this.

Your selected land (in blue) looks very private with no views, and perhaps little to no prevailing breezes. Is that so?

Keep in mind that the ideal orientation for energy efficiency and natural light is to to have all your public spaces--living room, dining room and kitchen--oriented toward the south. Avoid a westerly orientation for these spaces at all costs, since the late, low afternoon sun will create unbearable glare and interior heat gain.

Your weather conditions will have a lot to do with the architectural design of the house. For example, hot and humid conditions suggest high ceilings and ceiling fans.

Since you are on farmland, the first obvious idea for a custom house is...wait for it...a farmhouse! But farmhouses are regional, and a Montana farmhouse would be very different than a Alabama farmhouse.

My advice is to spend some time looking in your area, and on the Internet, at what makes farmhouses elegant, timeless and appealing...which many are.

Lol, yes I figured farmhouse might be suggested. There are two of us and we are child-free. We may have fur-babies at some point in time and possibly some horses.

The views are the hayfield itself and the trees surrounding it; lots of deer, turkey and other wild life ramble through. There is actually a creek that runs through the bottom (south) section of trees, but you can't see it without being in there. Makes me very sad.

So even with all of those trees the afternoon sun would still be problematic? I figured they might block some of it.

As for breezes, it's been a while since we rambled over there, so we need to do so again to determine that. I was thinking about ceiling fans and higher ceilings. We usually don't have power outages, but if the power goes out in the dead of summer, it can get stifling. So a generator was on our list, but a good layout to allow for air to easily move through would be useful.

It is never too early to start talking to an architect. Most of them love to talk, but the good ones are usually busy. Most likely if you talk to an architect about a building a new home, they can help you be more prepared when are ready to "sit down" and discuss everything the architect needs to know to design a home with you.

Getting road, utilities, septic, etc to you being that far from existing services will be $$$$$$$$$

That being said, I like privacy.

Work with the natural contours of the land and put together an idea of how you live, what you might want to build in the future - esp if you are thinking about increasing the menagerie to include anything that needs a barn, etc.

As a landowner in Southern Oklahoma, I'm in your shoes. Property has been passed down in my family since the 1920s.

Here are somethings to consider before building:

Do you have at least 2 ways off your property in the event of natural disaster (fire, flood, tornado ect?

Our property in Oklahoma already has a partially buried shipping container (tornado shelter) near the workshop. The future house will also have a tornado shelter.

You really need to visit Firewise . Lots of practical advice for building and surviving a wildfire. I would also have a least 1-2 cisterns

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House wise: before you build make sure a fire truck and ambulance can get and turn around safely in front of your house. Consider putting age in place features, wider doorways ect.

I know this man lives in Georgia and you're in Alabama, but you might want to get ahold of the book about Furlow Gateswood's houses. It's called "One Man's Folly". It's an amazing story of the houses this man has moved to his property and restored. It should give you a lot of ideas of what a farm house in the south can look like. Heck, you might even find one and move it to your property!

Be sure to splurge for a natural gas generator with an automatic transfer switch. You don't want to be running outside to turn it on during one of our storms. Have it serviced 2x annually. Companies usually do a maintenance agreement. I have a great guy we (and a lot of our neighbors) have been using for years. He does travel, so I bet he gets down your way. If not, he could recommend someone.

Porches are great, but as you know, we have spider webs, dirt daubers and carpenter bees. I've found the carpenter bee traps (wood tops w/hole and mason jar below) work well. Unless you're dead set on cedar, I would avoid. One the interior of our garage we used a washable John Hardie product. Low maintenance.

I don't know about you, but we never open our windows. It goes from winter to summer and then there is pollen season that lasts what seems like forever... not to mention the humidity.

You definitely need to have a budget in mind, or else the first house will be X over what you planned.

I don't know how much landscaping you'll have, or how many farm animals, but we have a well for watering the landscaping - our summers can be extremely dry sometimes.

Looks like a lovely spot, and reminds me I need to go buy more peaches!

Take a look at Acadian type homes

If you don’t have an idea of the infrastructure costs, plus what you want to spend on a build, and an preliminary plan with a bank for a loan amount, you can not even move forward minimally.

If it takes all of your 150K savings to get the road, power, well, and septic, to the spot, you’ll understand why dad’s house is much closer to the road. And your build plans may change before you even get started.

Most rural homes were very close to the highway if they were on the grid. The rural farm houses away from the highway often didn’t get a single light bulb until the 40’s. Sometimes, very late 40’s, despite the REA efforts. Or indoor plumbing. The outhouse and the kids with a bucket to the spring or well was their plumbing systems.

My own 1899 born grandmother never experienced actual plumbed turn on the tap running well water until the early 50’s when grandad’s new 4 room farm house was built about 300 feet from the electric lines on the highway instead of the old 2 room cabin back in the woods by the railroad tracks where the train didn’t stop anymore. It was cheaper to build the new house than to run power all the way back, despite the REA claiming success in the 30’s.

Nothing like visiting a TN two holer on a raw January morning. At least there wasn’t snow to clear to get to it. Is there any wonder that none of their kids took up farming and all moved to the city as fast as they could get away?

Remember that the cost of the build has to work for the bank, in order to make a build happen. That means that you will need all manner of legalese covering the property transfer to you, along with any easements necessary to acces it. If Pops wants to disinherit you, the bank doesn't want to be in the middle with a half built house. That all has to be settled well in advance of beginning to plan anything. Because there are tax implications.

That also means expense to build is virtually irrelevant. It is purely about resale value. If you want to build a 600K house in an area of 200K houses, you’re going to need to bring 440K cash to the build. Plus a 60-120K contingency fund. Plus infrastructure developments. If Because unknowns WILL happen. And you need cash to deal with that. It’s not going to be added to anyone’s loan.

This is why the South is littered with 130K doublewides. Rural property values are low for residential lots. And homes. It often costs a lot more out of pocket to recreate a “city build” on rural property than it does in town. And people would rather go ahead and live their lives and put money into a new tractor instead of putting money into things like houses.

The folks who ended up buying my grandparent’s property had the old rolled roofing clad cedar farmhouse burned for fire department practice. And there’s a double wide in what used to be the pear orchard now. And now that I’m my grandmother’s age when she sold the property, I sure see a lot of merit to building small, accessible, and near amenities.

In the early 80s, my father moved then remodeled a house for my older sister and her then husband. It was on a piece of land not far way, and he had it changed to commercial property. It does save some money, as long as the house is in decent condition.

Sophie is spot on with respect to infrastructure. Cost of driveway (just a bit over what I thought it might be) and running power (HOLY $$$ way beyond what I thought it would be) and septic (got lucky with soils and perc and don't need a sand mound... saved a few bucks) and well (don't have a cost yet).... easy to spend over half of your 200k budget right there.

200K is a really low budget. Even in AL with “free” land. Is there room to move in with your dad while you save another 200K? What are the rules about house trailers? Can you get the infrastructure done, and put an older house trailer there, so the funding can recuperate enough for a build?

Also, stop #1 needs to be to a bank to talk over what kind of loan is even possible. Self employment documents are gonna kill you if farming is your mainstay and you’ve been doing it less than 4-5 years. Is this a family corporation? With salaries? Or a payout on profits? Or are you independent contractors separate from the family farm’s company finances?

Actually, the first place you might need to start with is a financial planner, so that you can maximize your potential.

We've rented a house for the first week of our vacation that was moved to the site. Lady had the property, heard the house was going to be torn down to build something far larger. Board of the local Boys & Girls club convinced house owner to donate the house to them, they sold it to my landlady, she moved the house and fixed it up. Everyone was a winner!

I would follow Bri Bosh's plan. Depending on the size and finishes you want, 200K does sound a bit low. But then we don't live in a farming area, and I don't think you've stated SF. Is your DH and/or father/relatives going to be able to do any of the work? Will you get a permit? Be inspected? I believe you asked me about builders, so if you use a builder, I would definitely have it permitted and inspected. Otherwise, you don't have any recourse if/when something goes wrong. He could just walk away.

Consider modular house builds, too. Definitely a step above manufactured housing. They have come a very long way in respect to quality.

What do you have saved? How do you plan to handle the required property infrastructure improvement?

I think that with such limited funds, you need to be looking at a very small house plan. Something bigger than a tiny house, but not even an “average” size. Plan for it to be livable now, but expandable for the future, as kids arrive, or as income rises. A 2/1 with an open concept living dining kitchen ought to get you started.

But you need to design it so that you can add the master suite down the road. And then maybe a separate family room later. This is how older homes were constructed. They were built to be added on to later.

So a single central mass, ranch house. With an L garage at one side, and a central hall to the bedrooms that can continue in to a future master suite, as another L, ending up as a U shaped house.

Early colonial home which was added to over time...one can see the history with each addition...