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Choosing the right land is just as important as choosing the right house design, and in this episode we break down how to evaluate a building site before you fall in love with the view or the school district. We explain how two “similar” lots can have totally different realities once you factor in buried utilities, old foundations, wetlands, soil problems, steep slopes, floodplains, zoning setbacks, and the true cost of bringing in water, sewer, and power. You’ll learn why Landmark insists on checking that a house actually fits the lot and matches its conditions, how low‑priced land can hide expensive construction challenges, how special foundations, geotechnical reports, and flood‑elevation requirements affect design and budget, and how proper site planning also ties into disaster resistance (hurricanes, earthquakes, high winds, snow loads). Throughout, we will show you how Landmark helps owner‑builders go from “we own this land” to “we understand exactly how to use it,” acting as the engine that connects site conditions, permits, structure, and custom design into a buildable, budget‑aware plan. Of course, if you need help evaluating your land, we can assist with your site plan review to ensure your design fits the property.Transcript:
Steve Tuma: Generally, customers are excited — “Hey, let me get my plans.” And I’m saying, “Hey, that’s important. Let’s make sure the house fits on the land. Let’s make sure things work.”
Interviewer: Hello everyone, and welcome to Episode 78 of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show.
With me again today is the President and Founder of Landmark Home and Land Company, a company which has been helping people build their new homes where they want, exactly as they want, nationwide and around the globe since 1993, Mr. Steve Tuma.
Steve, what’s shaking, amigo?
Steve Tuma: It’s another great day. You know, it’s funny — you say “what’s shaking,” and we’re going to talk about land today. That could be stuff with earthquakes and earthquake engineering, but it’s a good day.
It was a really interesting week. A lot of customers getting very detailed into their home plans — specifics of exactly how they want the house. You know, nothing standard: “I want my kitchen like this, I want my hallway like this,” and it was pretty interesting. And you know, some land things — I think we’re going to talk about land a little today.
Interviewer: That’s what I want to talk about. Not so much about the actual building process, which is usually what we’re talking about, but an aspect of building that we don’t get enough time with, I don’t think — and that’s the land itself.
Are you good with that?
Steve Tuma: Yeah, yeah. This is a really interesting topic that a lot of people don’t really get into the details of. They say, “Hey, it’s close, it’s in the right school district, or it’s got a view.” But, you know, within that there’s a lot of stuff to check out.
Interviewer: Well, you’re always interesting, so I don’t see why today would be any different. But to start with, give us some insight into the obvious questions a new homeowner‑builder might have — things like, well, how best to choose land to build a house on in the first place. Let’s start there.
Steve Tuma: Well, generally people look at a community or neighborhood, or land with certain features. You know, if they’re doing a retirement home in the Rockies or the Sierras, they might want a certain view or certain trees or certain access — or certain access to leisure sports.
But then, you know, a lot of the concern is just: “Hey, where do I want to be?” So if it’s a newlywed family, a couple starting a family, they might be like, “Hey, I want to make sure we’re close to work or we’re close to good school systems.” If it’s someone retiring, it might be like, “Hey, I want to take advantage of fishing,” or whatever it may be. Other people building in cities might have different concerns on what’s there.
So the customer generally is always looking at, “Hey, where’s the land that I like — for the convenience, lifestyle, close to work, whatever it is.”
What I think some of the details that we need to review are: what’s kind of the hidden features of the land? What are the “uh‑oh” moments? Or, hey, what are things we should look at in land that can determine…
Because sometimes you could have two pieces of land that appear to be the same — a flat piece of land here and, across town, there’s another flat piece of land. It’s convenient to school, it’s convenient to work. But are there details of that land that make it harder to build on?
And those are the things that I think people don’t think about or don’t understand, or they can’t get accurate information.
So that’s the stuff that’s there:
- Are utilities available? When someone says, “Yeah, utilities are available,” does that mean they’re half a mile away and you have to bring them in? Or does that mean it’s an easy connection at the front of your lot?
- Soil conditions — we have people that are working on infill lots in cities and they’ll come up with stuff and say, “Hey, the city gave me a lot for a dollar. They’re going to let me rebuild.” And then I always say, “Hey, that’s really cool — but what was there before? Did someone tear a house down? There’s a foundation there you don’t know about. Is there a gas line? Is there an old oil tank if you’re in the Northeast? Are there utilities there? What’s buried in the ground?”
Because if you’re going to a city that’s 100 and some years old and you find a lot that’s never been built on, chances are something happened to it.
Interviewer: That one dollar can turn into a nightmare.
Steve Tuma: Well, that’s the thing that I’m saying. So this isn’t to scare people — it’s just to give them an understanding of, “Hey, the school district’s important, close to work’s important, close to family and any other things in life are important,” but also: what’s in there?
And what are the soil conditions in any lot? Is it something where there are water‑table issues? Is it something where there are expansive soils? Different things like that.
Also the terrain — if you’re building your retirement home in the Colorado Rockies and you want a beautiful view, you’re likely to be on a sloped piece of land or close to it, or something that isn’t exactly flat.
So it’s one of these things where you’ve got to look at the cost of building and the challenges of building on the side of a hill or a mountain versus flat land.
So there’s a lot to look at.
Now, here’s the thing — I don’t want to scare people. I want people to understand, “Hey, you should build a house where you want to,” but we should have a discussion of what’s going on.
And another one that’s been popping up lately a lot are floodplains. Right now we’ve got a couple of houses where people are building in areas where the family has been forever and there’s never been a flood — but then they find out that FEMA’s labeled it with a floodplain. And suddenly it changes your foundation or access to the lot.
So these are all things that could be checked out. Some people might say, “Oh, that’s a lot.” It’s a lot because they’re not familiar with it. But when we work with someone, we can go through, explain the process, let them know where to go check things out, and then we can design a home that makes sense.
So the bottom point of this is: there’s land that’s a very good value. Sometimes you have to see if you’re just lucky to get a deal, or if there’s a reason why the land costs less. Because sometimes land costs less because it’s harder to build. So they discount the land to make up for it.
Now that’s not necessarily the worst thing — you just have to understand it. It’s like any other risk in life. You just have to understand what’s there.
Oh, I forgot — zoning and setbacks. Does your house fit on the land? If you have a lot that’s 50 feet wide but your house is 49 feet wide, most communities won’t allow that. So we’d have to figure out a different house to fit on that land.
The key to all of this is, we have an understanding of the broad scope of:
- The design
- The use of land
- The engineering
So if a customer has a piece of land or is thinking of purchasing a piece of land, we can work with them to sort out how to make it usable for them.
Interviewer: Sure.
Steve Tuma: And customers generally have an idea of the house — but if there’s a little flexibility, we can work with it.
Right now I’ve got a customer in North Carolina, bought a piece of land in the community. The house is three feet wider than the zoning will allow. Fortunately, by the nature of this design, we can shuffle a couple of things around and he’ll still keep the general design he wants, and it’ll fit on the land that he has.
It was hard for him to find the exact piece of land, so we’re able — because of our custom design, understanding of the complete project, the engineering, the energy codes, all these things — we can work with people to make things happen.
Interviewer: So when you get a customer who says to you, “Hey, we already bought a piece of land, or it’s been in our family and we want to build on it now” — is that the process that starts first? Obviously, if they’re going to build on this, you need to know everything about the land itself, right?
Steve Tuma: It’s one of the components of it.
Generally customers are excited: “Hey, let me get my plans.” And I’m saying, “Hey, that’s important. Let’s make sure the house fits on the land. Let’s make sure things work.” Because we don’t want to get way deep into the design — have a beautiful kitchen and living room — and then find out the house is too wide for the lot.
So we want to check a lot of those details up front. And what’s cool about it is: we work with owner‑builders and understand the ins and outs of owner‑builders, and a lot of them understand, “Hey, I should check this out.” Some of them need a little more help, and if that’s the case we’re here to help them through the process.
There’s a lot of stuff — a lot of words that people haven’t heard, like geotechnical report, geology report, water tables, hydrostatic pressure, just stuff like that, which is big stuff. But it’s kind of like going to a doctor — you don’t need to know how to solve a cold; you just need to know the situation and get the help to go through. And that’s where we can help.
So yeah, if someone’s got land that they inherited, bought, it’s been in the family forever, or somehow acquired — tax sales, whatever it may be — we can work with them on navigating through the thing.
And that’s part of our process up front, just to help people understand the project — to make sure the house works with the land and make sure it makes sense to move forward. We want to work with people that are paying attention and understand and want to see the process to make sure that the house is built right.
Interviewer: Yeah, of course.
But, well, this leads to another question — has anyone ever called you where you go, “You know, you’re in a swamp. That’s just not buildable”? And how do you explain what bad land and good land is for building — aside from how beautiful an area is? How do you choose that?
Steve Tuma: Well, stuff like that — the first part of your statement there: “Hey, if someone has it” — yes, we have had people.
We had a family that had a piece of land on the East Coast, Northeast, where they found that their land was in a wetland. Now, if you and I walked on the land, it would be like, “Hey, this is grass. There are a couple of funny‑looking plants here.” Well, they were kind of water plants. So that area, because it was common, they actually worked with us to get a low‑impact foundation.
Sometimes what they do is they’re like, “Hey, if you only impact this much, or if you mitigate it — if you create whatever issues with 100 square feet of wetland, put 200 square feet of wetland someplace else.” So there are ways to get around it — if the building department allows for it, and other departments that are there.
It’s really just a choice, because some of these homes are in beautiful places — but people have to decide what they want. Because sometimes when you get in a low‑impact foundation or you’re just building in some of these areas, the costs go up because it’s not typical.
So we can do it. We’ve run into situations like that. We just have to understand the parameters. And then if someone’s working in an area where it’s a little more complicated, it might just take a little longer to get through the design, the approvals, the different things like that to make it happen.
And by the way, this isn’t just a matter of, like, in a wetland or different soils where it’s like, “Hey, take care of the wildlife.” It’s sometimes also the foundation:
- Do you have pilings?
- Do you have helical screws?
Different situations that hold the house up.
And that, I think, is where people will appreciate our help — going through and resolving the overall issue, instead of getting snippets of information that aren’t helpful in solving the problem.
Interviewer: Right.
Steve Tuma: We’re going to try to get you from A to Z, not from A to B and then you have to get from B to C to D and go nuts in the process.
Interviewer: Well, it’s just — again, we talk about this all the time — one of the things Landmark is known for is preparing plans. I mean “plan” doesn’t mean just the actual paper plans, but planning the entire build. Planning the build site is a big thing.
Steve Tuma: Well, what a lot of customers tell me after they get into it — and they use different words, but it’s essentially the same thing — it’s like, “Steve, you were like the engine of making this happen. You went in, attacked the problem, and got it taken care of.”
So a lot of people will go through and they’ll search “panelized homes,” “home kits,” “owner‑builder homes,” “self‑built homes,” whatever it might be — and they’re thinking, “Oh, I’m just buying some wood to frame my house.”
No — we’re helping them make it work: the design, so it’s right, work through homeowners associations, work through your own design concerns, make sure it fits the land, work with you to make sure it fits the budget you’re trying to hit to get it going.
So we’re helping solve a lot of answers with our one‑stop shop — to get you from A to Z, not from A to B, type of thing.
And that’s what people, as we go through and help customers, start realizing — that, “Hey, this isn’t just buying wood. This isn’t just calling a lumberyard and seeing who’s the cheapest to buy from. This is: let’s make sure the house is designed right, make sure it works with the land, make sure we have a solid team to help us through this.”
That’s really the value that customers don’t realize up front when they’re looking for us as a panelized home company. It’s really our ability to help design it, get it put together. And I think they’ll find it’s exceptionally rare to nonexistent that there’s a company like us that exists — but we just have fun doing it. It’s actually really cool.
It’s the part where there’s extreme value in working with Landmark Home and Land Company, because we have the ability to help you through the project — not just supply you a pile of wood and say, “Good luck.”
Interviewer: Yeah, it’s a different attitude.
You know, we were talking about earthquakes earlier, just kind of jokingly. But that’s an important thing. And not just earthquakes — in different parts of the country they have different sort of disasters that come along. And I would imagine that site plans can really, up front, help deal with the preparedness for most types of disasters wherever you’re building. Right?
I mean, some stuff you just can’t stop — you can’t go stop a tornado as such.
Steve Tuma: You guys aren’t there yet.
Interviewer: Right — I don’t know that anyone is. But the thing about it is there’s other stuff — like hurricanes, earthquakes, and different things.
There was a hurricane in Mexico Beach, Florida a few years ago — five, ten years ago, I can’t remember the exact timeline — but there was a hurricane. And I remember there was a family I was working with and they said, “Well, you know, these houses have been here since the 60s and 70s. Why do we have to do hurricane engineering?”
You know, there it is — knock on wood — hurricane goes through and blows it through. The only houses that stood up were the newer ones that were engineered, and they understood the design parameters. So those people are out there having a cocktail in their house while the rest of the neighbors are basically just going through their houses that were blown over.
So the thing about it is — it’s just like a site‑planning thing, a budget thing — you just have to understand the parameters. Then we can work with people to get it put together.
The reality of a lot of this is, sometimes stuff does cost more. To build a house in South Florida that’s hurricane‑proof — or resistant, I should call it, you know, the hurricanes are getting bigger and bigger — is going to be a lot different than if you were building a house on a flat piece of land in the Midwest, where they generally don’t have hurricanes. They might have leftovers of hurricanes, or tornadoes, or things like that — but there’s different features in the home.
So the reality is: having an understanding of the situation. Because we’ve had people that say, “You know, this land has been in the family for 100 years. My grandpa never built on it, my parents never did, but I am.” Or the kids now are getting together.
There’s a value to doing it, but using that land properly, designing it right so it gets put together and is enjoyable — that’s the key situation.
What’s really interesting is, we’ve helped a lot of people after the fires, earthquakes, hurricanes rebuild houses — to see that they like the value in making sure it’s put together right. Because they’ve lived through something, so they want to know it’s built right, the house is positioned right — keep it out of a flood area.
And we’re fortunate that our customer base has an understanding that, “Hey, in a flood area you have to do certain things. In a high‑wind area, you have to do certain things. In a high snow‑load area, you have to do certain things.”
So it’s pretty cool to help people. Some people have zero understanding — they know something needs to be done, they just don’t know what. But that’s the key: we don’t just look at your house as, “Hey, here’s a bunch of panels, put it together.”
We look at it as: What are you trying to achieve? You have a piece of land, or are thinking of buying a piece of land. What’s your end goal? Is this a retirement home? Is this your first home? Is this something where you’re really, really budget‑conscious? And what are you trying to achieve in the home, so we can get it taken care of?
And that’s actually the really interesting part of this business.
And it might sound intimidating to people, but once customers get into it, I think they’re kind of intrigued by it, because owner‑builders want to be involved with building their home. So to go learn something new and know that it’s taken care of properly is something that’s pretty cool.
Interviewer: You know, something that just strikes me — these are, this episode is a lot of real simple, kind of basic things. But your enthusiasm for this always shines through. You have fun doing this, don’t you?
Steve Tuma: Oh, it was interesting. Last night I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to try to get out early — five or six — on a Friday.” And I was like, “I’m going to do this.” Well, I think about 9:30 I’m like, “Man, I did a bunch of stuff.”
What you end up seeing is, by taking the right thoughts and the right understanding, how much better you can make a house — and how you can do things to make it affordable, or more affordable, for something to happen.
So last night, we’ll go through it — I did a couple of plan‑check reviews, where the building department came back with some questions. We just had to resolve a couple issues, get it off to the designer.
We have another house — a lady in Michigan, Cheryl. She’s building a house in Michigan, she says her last home, and is detailing everything. Like most customers, she has a controlled budget, but she wants certain features.
And some of the features — she was very interested in having an exact space between windows. It couldn’t be bigger and it couldn’t be smaller. And I’m like, “Why are you so stuck on this one dimension of one foot seven inches?”
She said, “Steve, I want the view, but I also — the way I cook, I want my knife holder to go between these windows, because it’s just where I grab.”
So, to me, what initially was something that I wasn’t quite sure what the quest was — after you see it, it’s like, she’s really tuning this house up for her lifestyle and her enjoyment.
And when you see that, it’s kind of like the positive feedback, where you feed off of each other. The customer says, “Hey, that’s pretty cool,” and then I’m like, “Okay, now I understand what you’re doing,” which helps me help with:
- The design
- Or engineering
- Or energy calculations
Whatever it may be, to achieve a particular goal that a customer has.
So I think we’re a little different because customers tell me, “Steve, you answer the phone, you have answers, you’re very proactive on it,” where people are surprised. Because in today’s world, all of us are consumers, and you can work with a lot of companies that claim to have all these awards — and then you call and you’re on hold forever, and it’s hard to talk to people and get real help.
But here, we look at it as moving along. And the real advantage is, we give a set and guaranteed cost. So if someone needs a little help, a lot of help, a whole bunch of help — we’re there, and through the project.
It’s not like an attorney or an architect where it’s like, “Well hey, I answered the phone, that’s 200 bucks. I’ve got to act busy and tell you something that took me 15 minutes took 10 hours.”
We give you a cost for getting through the project, which really helps people with their budget and understanding.
And we’ve worked with all different types of people in resolving these issues — whether it’s a budgetary thing, a site‑condition thing, a code thing, a personal item that they want, or a natural thing — fires, earthquakes, hurricanes.
So yeah, I guess we’re getting a little philosophical on the whole, “Hey, we’re talking about land,” but that’s an important part of it — how are you going to use the land, and is the land the right piece of land?
Now, as an idea here, just because a piece of land might have a challenge, it doesn’t mean that you still can’t build on it. We just have to understand it and get through. And in some areas, a lot of land has issues — it’s just the nature of it.
So — but we’re prepared. The chances of a customer bringing us a problem we haven’t seen before is extremely limited. But if that happens, we have the resources to figure it out.
Interviewer: So even your answer about your enthusiasm was enthusiastic. That’s pretty cool.
Steve Tuma: Yeah.
Interviewer: So that’s just about going to do it for today’s edition of the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show.
But before we let you go, Steve, let the listeners know how to find out more about Landmark Home and Land Company and what you guys do over there.
Steve Tuma: Well, we help people design and build their own homes — owner‑builders all over the country, around the world. We work with smaller contractors that want to go do small developments, multiple homes, or even individual families that just choose to put a rental property up.
We’ve had a lot of customers that — they built a house with us five, ten years ago, and then they’re like, “Hey, I want to do an investment place,” or, “My kids got married, I told them they should put up a four‑plex and live in one, and get it going — live for free.”
The best thing to do is check out our website: LHLC.com. Again, that’s LHLC.com — Landmark Home and Land Company.
Check out our website. We have a bunch of plans, different ideas on what we supply, some videos. All these podcasts are on there if people want to listen to them.
And you can email us from there. You could pick a plan out, send it in with some questions. We’ll get you pricing and help you with ideas on how to get your project going.
And then they could also call in at 1‑800‑830‑9788. Again, it’s 1‑800‑830‑9788. Mike will answer the phone and then we’ll go through and help from there.
Interviewer: Fantastic. And there you have it.
Thanks again, Steve, and thanks to all of you for listening, as always, to the Panelized Prefab Kit Home Building Show.
So for Landmark Home and Land Company President Steve Tuma, and for myself, have a great week and we will see you next time.
Thanks, Steve.
Steve Tuma:
Thanks.
