I think it depends where and what you build on. We built in a very established neighborhood. There are many new builds or very renovated homes in it but also many 60+ year old homes that are still in original condition. We could have bought a spec home for sale price as ours or even more but it wouldn’t have been built for us. We didn’t pay anymore to get what we wanted.

@A S Wow, lucky you! I wish that were true in my area. As I noted, the 4000SF spec home with a sport court is pricing out as similar to our 3000SF 3 bedroom with no sport court. I'm still way more excited for our custom layout but it's a tough pill to swallow.

We did talk to 8 or so different builders..provided all of them with a 3 page or so document detailing specs by room, trim levels, etc. Posted pictures of the interior of our current house on-line for them to look at, with the request that we want "at least as nice as" the current house. Provided other pictures of sample elevations we liked. Most of them didn't appear to have even taken the time to really look at and thoroughly assess what we provided. Basically, they all just appear to have given us the rough and very general/generic "SWAG" of..."two fifty per square foot". VERY frustrating - we took the time to put all that together, and I seriously doubt any of them really put any effort into actually thinking through their responses.

The Developer of the sub basically told me.."no-one will help you without prints". I get it, but we don't HAVE prints - and we won't have them prior to the end of our due diligence period on the property. So, while we did make every effort humanly possible to talk to as many different people (and types of people - builders, architects, developers of tract subs, assessors, etc) - we're basically flying mostly blind and have no idea what this could cost - until architect work has been completed and we have plans for people to estimate from.

"The Developer of the sub basically told me.."no-one will help you without prints". I get it, but we don't HAVE prints"

Unfortunately as you are finding out without everything spelled out to the nines, any price given is a complete crap shoot. And the drawings are step number one. You are extremely lucky to have gotten as far as you have with pricing. I will pretty much tell you they are all full of crap too. You will pay 20% more easy.

The cost is what the cost is.

Our house cost 1.2 million to build. Not high end in our area and smaller than many around us. It is what it is.

Just because you want it to be less doesn’t make it so.

Our jobs aren’t special to be able to do this but our luck on real estate was. We bought our first house and sold it nine years later for more than triple what we paid for it. That single thing shaped where we are now.

I realize "it is what it is" and pretty sure I said that previously. That said, it's also pretty ridiculous. There are very few people that can fund a home this expensive.

Happy for you that your house appreciated the way it apparently did - but not everyone is as fortunate. We live in a pretty nice area, and houses here have LOST value over the 20 or so years we've lived here. We won't even be able to get what we have into this house back out of it, let alone make one penny in profit. So, if builders in our market are counting on that for people to be able to buy these "Taj Mahal" priced new construction builds - they're going to be in for a rude awakening..

But builders don’t set the costs. Materials cost what they do, finding trades to do the work is what it is. This isn’t like someone jacking up prices for no reason. Costs exist and are transferred to the homeowner. Honestly it sounds like you are having the rude awakening. I don’t mean that in a condescending or mean way but in a reality check one. If multiple builders are saying $250/square foot, people here saying similar and giving adequate reasoning, it’s most likely that your hope for the cost is the issue. Most people don’t build custom homes in any market because it’s not feasible.

Perpsective ... your prices sound so cheap when compared to my area of Southern CA! Here you will pay $2 mill for a small 1960's house that needs updating and is on a small lot! Price per sq.ft. start at $600+ with many recent sales going for $750/sq.ft. or more. Most of the value here is in the land, but construction prices have continued to increase too. No empty land, so any new construction also involves a tear down, which adds even more to the costs.

@chispa is $600+ build only costs or includes land?

@retiredinmi How much will you be out if you get out of the lot contract now? If i were you I’d strongly consider taking this whole project back to square one and re-evaluating what you need and want in a house with this discouraging new info in mind.

The factors that are making your dream impossible don’t make a lot of sense, I agree. I think you are right to expect a crash in the new build market sooner rather than later. You’ve got sunk costs (time, emotion, hope, and hopefully not a huge amount of money) in this current project. But don’t fall for the Sunk Cost Fallacy and keep throwing time, money, and energy toward something that seems doomed to disappoint you. Far better to adjust your expectations and figure out how to meet your housing needs in a more modest way so that you can enjoy living in the house.

We have been working on plans for a custom home in Long Island since May 2019 (I just pulled out the first draft of the plans and was surprised to see it's been that long). Over that time, we've had conversations with a few builders and were given estimates of just over $200 to well over $400 psf. We moved to NY about a year after completing a semi-custom build in Northern Virginia, not a cheap area of the country, and were shocked to see the price difference (not including land, our construction cost in VA including some basic landscaping was about $155 psf for what some might label a McMansion). The finishes were nice but a lot of the savings came from the builder who re-used plans, had roof trusses prefabbed offsite rather than framing onsite etc.

Now that we have detailed plans, we're working with a couple of builders to get our pricing down to a price we can swallow. Note I didn't say a price we're comfortable with - because that doesn't seem to be in the realm of possibility any more. At the moment it's looking like around $300 psf, which compares pretty well with what others are saying here but is still almost 95% more than we spent in Virginia.

I guess the message for OP is: until you have detailed plans and can really get specific with the builder down to the kind of sheathing and gutters they're going to use in your construction, you're likely to have a hard time getting a more specific answer and certainly not in your diligence period.

That said: good luck and thanks for making me feel better about our estimates!

@SapphireStitch I'm not disagreeing with most of what you said and while I personally think there will be real estate corrections for some time with covid I do question the idea of a new build crash in terms of it trickling down to less expensive costs for homeowners. Again stuff costs what it does. Materials are unlikely to suddenly drop off in cost.

Thank you for that clarification, @WestCoast Hopeful. I was thinking more in terms of business for home builders than bargains for buyers. I guess some buyers got great deals on fairly new foreclosed houses during the last crash, so the OP could perhaps hold out hope for something like that. But you're right about materials.

@SapphireStitch - we're in the final stages of our due diligence, so can still decide to not move forward for any number of reasons - one of which was if we are unable to build the house we want within a cost acceptable to us. The Developer has also indicated he "has others looking at the lot", so if that's indeed the case it should be fairly straightforward to just let the other party have it at this point.

It's disappointing as we really love the property. But the cost of new construction is just so prohibitive for most that it's all but impossible to justify (or afford, candidly). If we knew going in that we could get "at least as nice as" the current house (albeit smaller) for the level of investment we are prepared to make, that'd be one thing..but it's been really surprising how little effort ANY builder has been willing to put in on even rough estimating to see if that's even remotely possible..and the more I hear, the more I'm convinced it may not be.

There are also some very complex bylaws and deed restrictions (over 60 pages worth!) as this is a Site Condo, and that's giving us all sorts of other heartburn. Unless we can work through that, those alone may squash the whole thing independent of build cost..

It’s disappointing when we can’t make our dreams a reality for sure. :(

I suspect builders aren’t willing to put in more of an effort because you aren’t paying them. It’s quite a lot of work to price out an entire home and even harder with no plans. I don’t think any would do it with no guarantee you would work with them.

Sure..understood,. But by comparison, I used to put dozens and sometimes hundreds of hours into "pre-sales" working with a prospective customer - with absolutely zero guarantee that they would work with me. And some of that was for far smaller $ projects than we are talking here. So, it's pretty disappointing that a builder wouldn't make a "reasonable" effort to give us more meaningful ballpark numbers based on what we thought were some pretty detailed specs (albeit, not full blueprints, but still..)

In our case, the development we reserved a lot in is all custom builds (kind of a unique situation), and our builder has done a number of the homes in the development. We were able to determine by a direct comparison what our home would cost to build (more or less), since there are a number of homes nearby that recently "sold". Have you been able to look at nearby custom homes similar to what you would like to get a comparison? Assuming the lots are all similarly priced, that should give you a reasonable ballpark.

Every industry is so unique. Some are willing, for whatever reason, to do a ton of legwork with no commitment and some are willing to do none. I actually found house building in the middle. Not a full effort but for sure not a brush off. Conversations that were absolutely enough to decide who you might want to work with.

@retiredinmi You keep saying that $300/sf price meant "please go away", but from all the info you've given us it sounds like that could have been the most realistic estimate you've received.

I agree with what @User says in that final paragraph. If you're at all close to needing accessibility in your home, your time is better spent figuring out how you're going to get it. There's a huge range of options for how you can handle that and you could spend months studying about it and pricing out possibilities. I speak from experience on this...I'm disabled and we're currently doing a combination of DIY and pro adjustments to our modest tract house to make life easier for me and to prepare for the future. I've also recently gone through helping my elderly parents move to an assisted living apartment because they had not modified their house and waited too long to make decisions that would have allowed them to live on their own longer. Just putting that out there to help you consider that there's so much more to planning than just price per square foot versus the luxury of finishes.

"I don't think it's unreasonable whatsoever for someone who's trying to land a $600K+ build contract to put at least a "little" effort into trying to win that business."

Unfortunately residential construction does work that way typically, especially when times are good. I am a commercial aluminum and glass estimator and been in the construction supply business for 35 plus years. In a case like your you would get a budget which would be a range amount in an email. You have specific bid documents, plans, specs, etc, you may get a price if the project is a good fit for us. We turn plenty of people away, as we say we don't need the practice.

It's a fair point that there's no real difference between an "estimate" (guesstimate would be a better word) of $250/SF and $300/SF when the basis for the "estimate" consists of a list of must haves and the size of the home.

If $250/SF is a valid low estimate and $300/SF is a valid high estimate then the average estimate is $275/SF +/10% I would not expect a cost/SF estimate to yield a better accuracy than +/- 20% I certainly wouldn't use it as the basis for selecting a builder nor for disqualifying one.

Jim I think you are misreading Millwork. It’s not just that they don’t need your work they don’t want it. They have interest right now and get to choose whose work they take on. It’s not arrogant or condescending or anything. If you have ten people who want to work with you and you can really only handle taking two on, you choose the two that are a best fit for you. Why would anyone do anything else? It doesn’t mean people are rude or mean. It means they pick who they work with. Nothing wrong with that in the least. It’s actually far more responsible to turn someone down than take on more than you can handle.

I'm sorry to hear about the frustration you've had in the due diligence period. It can be a convoluted process to have anything built unfortunately. To have put in FAR more effort than many people do at this stage and come out learning that the cost is out of reach is very frustrating (I know from personal experience and have had many would be clients' in the same position).

It sounds like you may be scrapping this deal and considering your options. If, in the future you find another piece of land and want to take another stab at this messy process you could try a test fit approach.

Now you know the approx range per square foot you'll likely be looking at. Speak with your prospective Architects about the cost to put together a very basic drawing package for estimating purposes which they would load with specification language, placeholder elements such as windows, doors, materials, which should get you to approximately the level of finish you're looking for, etc. He or she would be providing basic plans, reflected ceiling plans, exterior elevations, some of their standard residential details already in their arsenal, nothing incredibly custom or detailed but steps beyond the packet you provided to show the builders you have skin in the game.

Speak with your top 2-3 builders first to determine if they would or would not be willing to give you a more accurate preliminary estimate based on these drawings. If so you'll find out a tighter estimate for the job and if you can (hopefully) move forward you will not have as far to go in order to reach those permit and construction level drawings. You can make additional revisions with the Architect, understanding that if they are costlier than what you agreed to in the test fit drawing set the price of construction will increase. As many people have noted in this forum already, time will also likely cause that cost to increase.

Best of luck,

So what would you have a company do? If responsibly they can manage two builds. They have ten potential clients. What do they say and do for all ten that would meet your expectations? We had a builder directly say to us we cannot take on your project at this time. I'm so glad they didn't string us along at all. It was professional of them. You seem to have a real chip on your should about this all. No one is being cocky here. You can't do work if you don't have time for it. Leading people along is worse than saying we cannot work with you every time.

Good luck! It sure sounds like you know what you want and expect it. Sometimes when we keep repeating ourselves over and over and no one takes up our requests it is time to look inward at what we are asking and see where the disconnect is.

We absolutely expected clear communication, honesty, transparency, and respect from our team. We also gave it to them.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

Jim -- I've never build a custom home, nor am I an architect or a builder. But I have owned and sold many (too many!) homes and remodeled a few in a several different geographic areas. Here's what I've learned the hard way: Contrary to HGTV, major home improvements rarely pay for themselves, let alone provide a profit for the homeowner. The best housing bargains are often existing homes that have recently been remodeled/upgraded using quality finishes. You get a $70k kitchen for $40k, and $30k hardwood floors for $10k. You get shelving in the garage, a landscaped yard and window coverings basically for free.

If you truly want to downsize and/or relocate, I'd find an excellent realtor and look for an upgraded house in a great neighborhood. You'll know what your costs will be up front, you can negotiate the price and repairs, and you can walk away right up until the last minute. You can always personalize the house (paint, light fixtures, hardware, etc.) once you've closed on the deal.

More food for thought from a retired woman . . . think long and hard about that 2700 sq. ft. Unless you have family living with you, that's a lot of house to maintain as you age. Also consider how any house you buy will function for you ten - twenty years from now. Stairs? Access in and out of the house? Bathing? Put aging in place at the top of your want/need list, not as an add-on. You don't want to have to go through this exercise again in a few years.

If I were in your shoes, painful as it is, I'd probably let the land deal die. Rethink your priorities and evaluate all of your housing options. Take your time. There's a perfect situation out there with your name on it, but it doesn't sound like this is it. Good luck finding your next home.

Thanks..the 2,700 sq ft is based on a "used" house we looked at and almost bought. The kitchen was too small and the dining area too large for us, but aside from that - perfect for us (including an absolutely amazing French Country elevation with a lot of natural stone), and we "should" have bought it. Very nice house..just a weird floor plan and we passed because of that.

"eg: won't even spend 2 hours estimating a $600K+ project. REALLY?!"

How can they estimate it? You have no documents showing a house to figure the material from? And 2 hours? Try 2 days minimum? 2 hours gets you the WAG that you've been getting. As LWO said many posts ago you need to have some skin in the game for people take you seriously. Good luck with your project.

I'm a secret professional athlete who just comments on Houzz for fun. Actually a teacher but darn I'm married to a lawyer.

I go back to what I said from the start though. The numbers don't lie. If this is what it costs this is what it costs. Lamenting woes won't change that one bit.

I don't have a dog in this fight...but I'll offer this as food for thought: Many (most) experienced builders need (and want) construction drawings and specifications in order to "bid" the construction of a new house. In this way, the detailed bid for construction is based on explicit and detailed information, and not personal ideas, preferences or interpretation.

All the other lists, photos, and other illustrative and descriptive materials prepared by consumers are simply not sufficient for an experienced builder to prepare a detailed binding bid for construction. There's simply too much room for different personal opinions and interpretation. That should be obvious--but I guess it isn't.

This sort of approach is often a signal to an experienced builder that the consumer simply isn't serious, or doesnt really know what is required for bidding and constructing a custom home. It's a turn off.

In many (most) cases, the best way for a consumer to get the house they desire at their desired budget is to commission an architect and builder to work together as a team, with the consumer, to design and price the project as the design unfolds. In many cases this also involves a negotiated construction contract and not a competitively bid one, since most builders wouldn't want to put in all of time this requires (even if they are paid) if they aren't going to be awarded the construction contract. After all, time is money, as someone said.

Of course, a consumer can do anything they choose to do when it comes to designing and constructing a custom home. But then so can a builder.

The best projects are always those in which the consumer, architect and builder are all knowledgable and on the same page from start to finish.

Understood, and agree that's definitely ideal. But, realistically, few if any purchasers who find a property that they want to build on will be able to put all that together within their due diligence period, also.

We would have loved to do exactly that. Not one Architect we spoke with could do plans within the due diligence period we have.

So, what's a prospective purchaser supposed to do, exactly, to determine what the project will (at least roughly) cost?

It's simply unrealistic for builders to expect prospective homebuyers to come to them with blueprints. 80+% will not, as they found a lot they want and are exploring what it will cost to build a home to their (often well defined and detailed) specs.

Jim, at this point, to be honest, you are the one who seems uninformed. So many really great useful comments here you just don’t want to hear.

You sound so very frustrated but a lot of it is anger at the fact you can’t afford to build the house you want and disappointment that you waisted so much time trying to figure out something you seem now unable to see through.

It just isn’t the fault of a builder or architect that your timeline is tight and budget too lean for what you want.

There is more than one way to buy a lot and build a house. It seems the one you chose isn’t tenable for you. But that’s about your situation.

I feel for you as you clearly wanted this to work out and spent so much time trying to make it so. Others aren’t nearly as invested as you are and that is also a good lesson in building.

I'm sorry. You are clearly adamant in your view of how things should work in the design and construction world. I'm sorry because you are so misinformed and wrong. I'm sorry.

If you approach a builder about how much it will cost to build a house on some prospective property or other, don't put yourself in a situation where you only have a very limited amount of time to develop reliable costs.

The best a builder can do for you, in these circumstances, is to tell you how much it will cost to build one of his standard building designs, perhaps with a very few modifications. Builders who don't have some standard houses they can build are a waste of time in such a situation.

Frankly, you would be much better off buying some time from a local architect, discussing property criteria that makes development easier and more desirable, and some other criteria to be avoided. Thereafter, go looking for property, and perhaps even have an architect walk potential property with you to evaluate it.

That's if you really want a custom house. If a builder's house will do for you, then that's another strategy option.

I'm sorry, but you've put yourself into a box, and you're the only one who can get yourself out.

Good luck!

Working in business doesn’t make you an expert in building. It makes you an expert in your niche area alone. Sure you can apply some things from one to the other but the easiest way to be wrong is assume you know something about a profession you aren’t in.

Good luck indeed!

Business is business. The same basic tenets (ie: treat people fairly. Do good. Be reasonable and professional") apply, whether you are selling houses or fish at a market.

I stand by my early points.

LWO you and I rarely see eye to eye but on this one we absolutely do. Jim’s approach is his own worst enemy. 🤦‍♀️

We spent a lot of time researching before we built our custom home. We are in rural Missouri and built a 2200 sq ft home with a full basement at $117/sq ft. We don't have a deck or concrete drive/walks yet but we will eventually. We were very careful about each line item. I purchased fixtures on lamps plus open box, ebay, home depot/lowes clearance. We purchased our lumber in January when lumber markets trend lower, we bought our osb sheeting before a hurricane hit because we knew it would jump in price if we didn't. We took our time to find good deals on our hardwood flooring, quartz countertops, trimwork etc... Our home is a true custom home, but it was super difficult to come in around what we wanted to spend. Our builder told us we would be around $150/sq ft. But we also painted all of our trim, built shelving and did a lot of our own dirtwork. I guess what I am saying is that sweat equity saves you a lot of money. Many builders in our area are having a hard time finding good help. Most of our builders here are so busy they weren't able to put together a super detailed estimate. Go with the own that gives you the most detailed estimate. They are the ones that will help you have a more set budget otherwise you may spend to much in an area just because of timing! Good Luck!

Honestly the best way to approach this is to find an architect whose work you like, who respects your budget and goals, and set about the process of investigating land (maybe not this particular plot), designing a home that fits your budget and top needs, and then seeing what bids you can get. Due diligence in construction cannot really happen without the site and plans in hand, the bids are just random ballparks. Once you have the specific site and specific needs triaged in a plan you can set about line iteming each and every allowance and figuring out where you can spend and where you need to save.

We are a single income family with seven kids, who need an accessible home for our disabled child. We have a tight budget. Still, we are able to meet our budget and have the site and home we want because we went through the design process and figured out what we could manage. In our case we have to spend more time and DIY to afford what we cannot pay a trade to do. That’s how we are making the budget work - that, and investing much more heavily in the systems and hard finishes but keeping a lighter hand in areas more easily upgraded in the future. But I guess my point here is not so much what we did to make it work, but that we could not even BEGIN without plans and a site in hands. Estimates are meaningless, there cannot be informed building and design choices to make the budget - NO MATTER WHAT IT IS - work unless that’s number is stated and the plans and finishes are created with that in mind.

A custom build need not be ridiculous, but they are investments heavily dependent on specific choices in design. That applies to the site and shell, sure, but even more so to the interior finish choices. A builder cannot bid what they cannot see and price. You have to work with a residential architect and select a specific site with them, design a specific plan for it and your budget, and then bid that design out. But your residential architect should be able to give you an excellent idea of what you can afford and help you troubleshoot to stay within that budget before it ever hits a contractor’s desk. That’s what they DO.

"Now, we're looking at $900K++++ for a comparable house and less acreage."

Then realistically that right there has set the market for your home and what you want. That's a comparable home or a comp. Whether you believe it or not I cannot help with.

Let me see if I can create a simple illustration of what is wrong here and if the OP can understand why he will never get contractor prices using his current methodology.

Imagine you are a general contractor and you have been approached by a consumer with the information that the OP has described above.

The consumer wants you to price the custom house using the OP's information.

How much concrete will be used? How many concrete subs will be required? How long will it take them to complete their work?

Ask yourself if there's enough information available to price any trade necessary to complete the house.

The obvious answer is....NO!!!

The PP's wish list cannot be priced. If you are the the builder and you have this prospective job, plus two others with detailed construction documents where will you spend your available time?

I think the answer is obvious.

I'm honestly really confused by the OP's anger. It doesn't appear that any of the contractors did anything other than give him an approximate cost/SF (which is all they can do without plans), but he's calling them ARROGANT and talking a lot about 2008 and HUBRIS. I work on bridges. When a client asks what a bridge is going to cost, we give them a price per square foot, with a hefty 25% contingency, and that's it until we do preliminary design. Can't price concrete & steel until then. It's not arrogance that we're not providing more. It's IMPOSSIBLE to do more. And bridges honestly have a lot less going on than a house since we basically know the materials, know how wide the road is, and know what it needs to go over. If the OP expects more than that...well, maybe someone would humor him and spend 10-20 hours on it, but they'd end up at the same cost/sf anyway, so why bother? We were given an approximate cost/sf based on recent builds and similar SF with "a 6/10 on finishes". It was by no means a guarantee, but it was a starting point for us to determine if we could swing it. I didn't find it arrogant that our builder didn't spend more time pricing out our house for us. When we get the bids back in a few weeks we'll see how close we are.

@Virgil Carter Fine Art - understood, but our viewpoint is that we provided a heck of a lot more info than most customers do (a three page Word document with detailed specs, sample elevation pictures, pictures of our current house as a reference point for the level of fit and finish we were looking for, etc), and would expect that a builder could come up with at least a range based on the detailed info we provided.

A big part of my job before retiring was to estimate implementations of complex enterprise software. We typically had FAR less in the way of specs to estimate from, and the systems we were implementing were exponentially more complex than a house. Yet, we had to provide actual estimates that a customer would in the end hold us to on every single job we bid - because that's what our customers expected and candidly, demanded. And if we weren't willing to do that, our competitors sure would. FWIW, those estimates would sometimes take weeks to put together (with absolutely zero guarantee the customer would choose us) - and had thousands of "moving pieces and parts" / variables. We also very often had far less detail on the customer's "real" requirements than we've provided to builders as well. So, I'm not particularly empathetic to the "but it's just so complex to come up with a range", as we estimated far larger and far more complex projects for a living..I really don't think it is - I think builders just don't want to "bother" or make the effort to do so.

I don't want to derail the original intent of the thread any further than I already have, as this really wasn't intended to be a discussion on OUR project, but to gather data from the community on what all of you were seeing in your respective markets. So, I'll leave it at that vs going round further in circles - but as a closing comment on this point, my net disappointment is that we have not yet been able to find a builder willing to put at least a "little" bit of effort into actually thinking through the very detailed info we provided, and every last one of them has simply given us what I'd call a "generic" answer..ie - custom house? Tell them $250/sq ft. Done. That's just not reasonable to me and is a huge part of why we're having such a hard time deciding to move forward or bail on the project since we TRULY have no idea what we'd be getting into, but apparently just the way builders want to work..

I don't think your software systems correlate well to the building industry with the exception of tract builders. I think your document would get you really close estimates from a tract builder. A one off custom though, no way to get even remotely close. There are too many variables to account for, not the least of which is the cost of building materials that can vary week to week. But the bigger picture here is that a small builder might do one or two custom houses per year and be working on them full time while doing it. They don't have a crew of sales people working on bids for jobs. They are out building their one or two houses per year. The industry is just that different. To get to anything near an actually meaningful price quote for our custom home took at least 4 months and there are still many variables. And we still probably missed by 15% (and who knows where we will end up as lots of lumber just took a 40% increase in my area this week. thankfully we had all ours ordered prior to the increase).

Anyway, I think that throwing out a price per sqft average is a pretty good way to get you close. And, FWIW, I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the guy that said 300$/sqft was the most realistic of any of the "bids."

LWO 100% to all you said! Bang on.

@User I think you're missing the point here. I'm not expecting to order a custom fluorescent lime green Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo with a CB radio. Nor am I looking to build a $1M house, as that's definitely way out of our range. I'm simply looking to build a relatively simple, mid 2,000 sq ft retirement home with reasonably quality components (eg: Andersen 400 windows).

If THAT costs $1M+ to design and build, something is seriously screwed up with the market - because there are simply not many people here in the Midwest (us included) that can afford a $1M+ mid 2,000 sq ft house. And, Econ 101 - if you price your product above what people can (or are willing to) pay, pretty soon you're going to run out of customers with all that entails - like eventually having to fold up shop. So, faced with that reality, all markets eventually equalize and in this case, it would mean prices coming down to what more people can reasonably afford. So, I still contend that what I said earlier is true - COVID, insanely low mortgage rates, tariffs and many other things appear to be significantly impacting prices at the moment - and I do expect at some point for things to "normalize" and come back within the realm of sanity. Because if some of you think it should take $1M to build a mid 2,000 sq ft house..that's some really out of the ordinary expectations, IMHO.

OP, we are currently in the process of building and, based on what I know, it is true that the most that any builder (or contractor) will be able to give you at this point is a very weak estimate. Unfortunately, the information that you have provided is mainly focused on finishes and does not take into account some of the more expensive aspects of building--lot developing, foundation, and framing. Photos of elevations are not enough. Without structural plans and topo-geological information, it is unlikely that anyone can provide the type of estimate that you are seeking.

Here are some things to think about in addition to those finishes that you have provided in your initial OP:

How deep will your footings need to be in order to accommodate the "simple" structure that you are proposing from photos? How does this apply to the walk-out basement, three car garage and the "possibility" of maybe being a ranch or two-story structure?

Will this be 2x6 framing or 2x4? What about your sheathing or truss-joist system? Will this be stick built?

What type of loads does that framing need to accommodate?

Will that brick be structural or veneered? And, what about the footings for that masonry fireplace? Will this masonry work require a beefed-up framing package?

And, what's underneath that topsoil? This one will dictate A LOT when it comes to literally eroding away one's budget. And, when you use the word "acreage" (which we have, also) with the word "utility" in the same sentence, the best that one can obtain is a loose estimate with a prayer.

We have been building for nearly a year. And, from our project's inception, we have had to adjust our expectations. Not only did we have an initial, unrealistic belief about pricing (i.e., we are 90% over our dream-budget), we've also had to learn that, when it comes to a fully custom build, nothing is truly set in stone with an unstable market (i.e., availability of materials and contractors). Regardless of one's emotions, there is nothing that can or will change this. Therefore, you have to go into a project like this open to the real possibility of obtaining less than those initial expectations. If one cannot accept these possibilities early on, then I have to agree with the consensus here: it is best to find a more suitable alternative.

I hope this helps you better understand that which you are seeking.

@tendrac Yes - that's helpful and good perspective. Thanks.

One more thing: I think that if you can provide a more detailed plan or blue print, then you will find that your project may be doable, cost-wise. But, as it stands, it doesn't appear that you have provided enough detail to obtain the information that you seek. So, for the time being, all that a GC can offer is a guestimate based off of unknowns. This is probably the reason for those "estimates."

Generally speaking, most folks who post here do so in order to expand their knowledge and awareness through the comments and experience of those who post responses to the initial posting.

In this case, however, it appears the OP doesn't want to expand his knowledge and awareness. Response after response seems to indicate that the OP has a very fixed point of view about which he wants to argue and convince everyone that his point of view is the only valid point of view.

As I said earlier, I don't have a dog in this fight.

I wish the OP well and hope he achieves his goal.

Unless you have significant trade skills and will help to construct your own home, I think building a custom home is something for the rich who want what they want at a premium price. Most people cannot afford the premium in a custom home, and it certainly is a losing investment nine times out of 10.

Reading your remarks, I think you are clearly the person who should be looking for a premium-built used home that is selling below its cost to build. Such homes can occasionally be purchased at steep discounts. I was toying with the idea of retiring to Nevada, and one home I saw had outrageous build quality. They had high-end stone masonry everywhere and things like custom arching beams. They spent about $375/square foot to build but because the neighborhood had homes with $150 to $200 build cost, the resale value of the home was $240/square foot. I would rather pay $250/square foot as an investment, and buying $375 for $250 is the way I would want to invest $250.

I think the problem for people building a custom home with a tight budget is they can be easily fleeced on the home build quality without ever knowing what hit them. For example, to get costs lower the builder may switch to 2x4 framing on 16" centers instead of 2x6 framing on 24" centers. The 2x4 home will be much less insulated and will have very shallow window bays. It will feel cheaper. The odds are you would never ask about the framing. The homebuilder saves a ton of money on his material costs by switching to 2x4. You end up with a home that does not feel quite right and never know what hit you until much later down the road.

Where custom home building really shines is in the ability to select high-end materials and building approaches that are never seen in tract homes. For example, when you do the framing you can use new stud designs that incorporate closed-cell foam into a truss design inside the studs. Normally a wood stud in the framing has very poor insulation and directly acts as a heat/cold sink that bypasses your home's insulation. The newer style studs (e.g., "T-Stud" is a brand) have an R-value of 20 (versus 6 for a normal stud) and have four times the strength because of the engineered design. Alternately, you can insulate the outside wall of the home and use SIP insulated panels on the roof, to directly overcome the insulation problems with normal studs. These things can greatly increase the comfort of the home, but they also increase build cost, and in any case, they are rarely done outside of a custom build environment.

In a perfect world, in addition to an architect, it would be great to find a home builder that you could hire as a consultant - at an hourly rate - to help educate you about key variables in building a home, and that person could help you to understand budget impacts of various build choices, as well as help you specify things to the builder and architect. I wonder if there are retired home builders who do this on a consulting basis, even remotely.