One of the most common mistakes new home buyers make is treating homesite selection as an afterthought. You find a floor plan you love, start imagining the kitchen, and then figure out where to put it. The problem is that a beautiful home on the wrong lot can undermine just about everything you were hoping for.
The lot shapes your daily life in ways that are harder to change than a floor plan. You can add a room or update finishes years down the road. You can’t move a house to a better street or swap out a north-facing backyard for a south-facing one.
Lacrosse Homes has been building on Maryland’s Eastern Shore for more than 30 years. We’ve helped a lot of buyers make this decision well, and we’ve learned that the homesite conversation deserves just as much attention as the home itself.
Three paths: Community homesites, Build on Your Lot, or Land/Home Packages
For most buyers, finding the right place to build happens one of three ways.
- Choose a homesite in a Lacrosse Homes community. Our active communities across Maryland’s Eastern Shore offer available homesites in a variety of locations and settings. You can compare what’s available, select a floor plan that fits your needs, and determine which homesite works best for the home you want to build.
- Build on land you already own or find yourself. With Build on Your Lot (BOYL), you bring the land and we bring the home. This gives you greater flexibility in where you live, but it also means evaluating the property carefully to make sure it can accommodate the home you have in mind.
- Start with one of our Land/Home Packages. If you want the flexibility of living outside a traditional community but don’t already have land, our Land/Home Packages offer another option. Lacrosse Homes works with local real estate professionals to identify desirable homesites and pair them with one of our home designs, taking much of the guesswork out of finding land and determining what can be built there.
Whichever path you choose, the homesite matters just as much as the home itself. Below, we’ll walk through what to consider so you can make the right choice for your home, lifestyle, and budget.
What to consider when selecting a homesite
Whether you’re choosing from available lots in one of our communities or evaluating land for a BOYL project, the same core factors apply.
Location and daily access.
Start with the basics. Where does this homesite sit relative to your work, your kids’ schools, and the places you go every day? On the Eastern Shore, Bay Bridge access and commute patterns into the Baltimore-Annapolis corridor matter a lot for buyers who split time between the Shore and the metro area. Queen Anne’s County Public Schools serves the communities where Lacrosse Homes builds, and it’s worth checking school assignments by address early in the process. It’s also worth mapping out a typical Monday morning commute before you fall in love with a specific lot.
Lot size and shape.
Lot size determines what you can build and how much outdoor space you’ll have. A deep, narrow lot has different constraints than a wide, shallow one, and shape affects how your floor plan sits on the land. A 1+-acre homesite like those available at Meadow Creek in Centreville gives you room for a larger footprint, generous setbacks, and a pastoral feel that’s hard to replicate on a smaller suburban lot.
Orientation and sun exposure.
This one gets overlooked constantly. A south-facing backyard means afternoon sun on your patio and natural light in your main living areas. A north-facing backyard stays shaded most of the day. Depending on how you live, that difference shows up in both comfort and energy costs for years to come.
Topography and drainage.
Flat lots are easier and generally less expensive to build on. Sloped lots can be beautiful but may require additional grading, retaining walls, or foundation work. Drainage matters too, especially in low-lying Eastern Shore terrain where heavy rain can pool quickly in the wrong spots.
Views and surroundings.
What will you look at every day? This is where the Eastern Shore really delivers. Lacrosse Homes builds waterfront and water-adjacent coastal properties where mornings come with views of the Chesapeake Bay or tidal creeks — and floor plans like the Blue Heron II are designed specifically for that coastal setting. We also build in wooded enclaves where mature trees provide privacy and a natural setting that takes decades to establish on its own. And for buyers who want open, pastoral land, communities like Meadow Creek offer that countryside feel without being far from schools, shopping, and everyday conveniences.
Not every view matters equally to every buyer. Some people want water. Some want trees. Some want a neighborhood with sidewalks and nearby neighbors. Knowing your preference early saves a lot of backtracking.
What to look for on a BOYL lot
Zoning and building regulations determine what you can and can’t build on a given parcel. These rules affect the number of bedrooms and bathrooms allowed, the number of stories, whether a basement is feasible, and setback requirements that define how close to the property line you can build. The Queen Anne’s County Planning & Zoning office is the local authority for most of where Lacrosse Homes builds and is a good starting point if you want to research a specific parcel.
Percolation tests (commonly called perc tests) are required for lots that will use a septic system rather than a public sewer connection. The soil needs to drain at an acceptable rate to support a septic system. If a lot fails a perc test, it can’t support the home you’re planning, and that’s a dealbreaker worth knowing before you’re under contract. The Maryland Department of the Environment oversees on-site sewage disposal regulations and has additional information if you want to understand the process in more detail.
Utilities include water, sewer or septic, electricity, and potentially gas. Understanding what’s already available at the site, what needs to be run to it, and what that infrastructure work costs is a critical part of the overall budget picture.
Clearing and demolition costs vary depending on how much vegetation exists on the lot and whether any existing structures need to come down. Wooded lots are beautiful, but clearing trees adds to the project budget in ways that aren’t always obvious at first glance.
How Lacrosse Homes helps
We’re not just here to build the house. We’ve spent more than three decades working through homesite selection on the Eastern Shore, and we know the land, the local regulations, and the things that can catch buyers off guard.
For community buyers, we walk you through every available homesite and help you think through which one fits your floor plan, your lifestyle, and your long-term plans. For BOYL buyers, we’ll help assess feasibility, navigate the permitting process (which typically runs 8 to 10 weeks in this area), and confirm that the site can support the home you want to build.
The goal is to make sure you’re not just excited about the house. You should be just as confident about where it’s sitting.
Ready to start the conversation?
Explore Meadow Creek to see what 1+-acre homesite living looks like in Centreville, or visit our Build on Your Lot page to learn more about bringing your own land to the table.