I just went through this exercise in the Santaluz area and decided not to build. I spoke with several architects, and all of them told me $200-250 was more realistic.
Those contractors are likely lowballing you to get the job. I spoke with one who said $150, and then we went through the type of house, and finishes, etc, and it became $180… 200… 230…
What is your total budget? If you’re talking $1-1.2M, my conclusion was you can’t build a nice home for that, especially in that area. If you then go up a bit in price, I think 1.5M is definitely doable, but then there are also occasional deals like this too in that price range:
I ran a whole excel spreadsheet and figured the house would have to be about 3000 sq ft and the land < 300k, and then you could hit $1-1.2M realistically. But remember there's that extra $1000 each month you have to pay too. For me it was just on the edge - a 10% overrun would have be death. Your budget may be different.
