Anonymous wrote:The bank would be hesitant to lend to you if your home is too small. I would build as large as possible, modern building codes make new homes much lower monthly utilities than even small ramblers.

This is not quite true. Appraisers care only about the NUMBER of beds and baths. If you can live without every room being massive, you can get a good appraisal and loan based on the number of rooms. We did a 3.5 bath 3 bedroom main, one basement, and our appraisal/loan came in at 1.3, more than enough with which to build. Ours is admittedly bigger at 4000 sf above and below grade, but our house has at least 500sf of just open, generally unnecessary areas (spaces that we like, but could easily be cut out).

A five bedroom house with an office, in the 3000-3500 square foot range (assuming excluding the basement square footage), could result in relatively small junior bedrooms.

I'd advise you to come up with a list of upgrades (as detailed as you can be), and then do some comparison shopping. A builder who has the ventilating shelves as the default is likely to charge a different price than those who don't. Some builders are more flexible than others if you want more customization. In general, they probably prefer using some plans from their master file.

Complete customization could be a double edge sword. If a house is more or less mass produced, you'd expect that some design bugs have been fixed. A customized home, on the other hand, probably will have some design issues that you find to be a nuisance once you move in.

The bank would be hesitant to lend to you if your home is too small. I would build as large as possible, modern building codes make new homes much lower monthly utilities than even small ramblers.