Stake
After the land is surveyed, the surveyor will stake out the area that the house will occupy. They will insert stakes at every corner of the house. You or your builder will insert a second set of stakes a couple of feet outside of the surveyor stakes. These stakes, called offset stakes, will be the markers that the excavator uses. This will leave some room between the hole that the foundation will be poured into and the actual frame for the foundation. It would be very hard to pour the foundation if there were no working room around the foundation frame. By using offset stakes, you are providing the working room.

Excavate
Now that the land is marked off, it is time for the excavators to come in and dig out the hole for the foundation of your new house. This is a surprisingly involved process. You can't just set the stakes and dig. There are considerations such as the type of soil that you are digging into. How deep you dig will depend on how deeply the ground will frost during the winter and how saturated the ground will become in the spring. A structural engineer will be in charge of exactly how deeply the foundation is dug.

Plumbing
You may have looked at a foundation and noticed pipes sticking out of it. That's because all the plumbing is laid out before the foundation even is poured. This means that you will be married to your floor plans before the foundation is poured. Be sure that you are sure about what you want. If you are thinking that you might want to add a wet bar to the family room or a half bathroom in the basement you will need to make those decisions before the foundation is laid. Making changes afterward will be very costly so do yourself a favor and be solid with your decisions before laying the foundations.

Laying your foundation might be the most important step in building your new home. It is critical that you get expert help at this stage. If you dig the foundation too shallow or too deep you will have problems with your home forever. These aren't little problems either. If your foundation shifts, your walls and floors will shift with it. If your foundation sinks so will your whole house. A cracked and unstable foundation will make your house difficult if not impossible to sell.
Foundations problems can happen almost over night. Just one freeze and thaw cycle can change your dream home into a nightmare. Make sure this doesn't happen to you by hiring professionals to help you prepare your land for the foundation.