A lot of it depends on how close to Lincoln you want to be. Once you get about 40-45 minutes away form Lincoln, the prices drop substantially and the availability goes up. My wife and I started out in Lincoln (met at UNL) but then wanted to move to a smaller community after we started our family. We looked in towns all around Lincoln (Seward, HIckman, Milford, Ashland, etc.) and everything was still really expensive. It wasn't until we got at far as Beatrice that the price of housing dropped. We had a house we liked in Lincoln but couldn't quite afford it. We found the exact same house in Beatrice for literally half the price. We had no ties to Beatrice, but it has been a nice community for our family. Big enough to have most ammenities (restaurants, entertainment) but smaller community. We have family in Lincoln so we are there all the time and it is an easy drive (4-lane highway all the way).
Now if that is too far away for you, some of the other communities mentioned like Denton, HIckman, Syracuse, Wahoo are also nice towns. Land is just a little harder to come by in those areas as many people are looking to do the same thing and stay close to Lincoln but get slightly cheaper housing. I would suggest contacting a realtor in the county that you are interested in, most likely Lancaster, and they can point you to some available land as new developments keep popping up all over surrounding Lincoln.