A site in the Bay area where you can build a house...What a lucky person! I would think that you would want to put the most beautiful and well designed and built structure on your property as possible. Given this rare opportunity, I would suggest that you find an architect - one who designs 'green' and is sensitive to the land. In the end, for many reasons, an architect can save you at least the fee that she or he charges, help you develop and express your own unique vision of home, and create a structure that will be a testament to conscientious building rather than another blight on the land. As an alternative, you may find architecturally designed homes on these websites: healthyhomeplans.com or architecturalhouseplans.com These plans have been designed and built for actual clients, and are offered as an alternative to standard stock plans. If you find a plan, you could take it to an architect or engineer to detail for your particular codes and conditions. I think there are a number of plans that were designed for sloped properties. An architect or engineer could easily modify the plans to work with your conditions. Good luck with your project!

Here, for 10 square feet of granite fabricated into the vanity that you describe in an average granite would be around $1200 average, including the granite. That includes the installation of two undermount sinks at around $200 each for the labor charge to mount them, sinks not included. That also includes the charge for the offset cut. We are in a low labor cost area and do not use prefab slabs. Most places are all inclusive, charging stone and labor together, not separated. But, of the few that do labor only, you'd be talking $30-$60 a square foot, depending on the stone and the complexity of the job. A more expensive stone is more expensive to fabricate because of the "insurance" factor. I can easily see the labor price between my location and yours doubling.

"Blaming the poor school results and poor quality of services to not collecting enough taxes is crazy." " In 2007, The New York Times reported the average property tax in California was .68 percent." No making such a statement from the wilds of NC is crazy. From folks that live there, the consensus is that Prop 13 is the victim of unintended consequences. California Schools went from among the best in the USA in the late 1970s to among the worst. The infrastructure went from one of the top rated to a situation that has become somewhat desperate. The fact of the matter is that 0.68% Property tax is unfair when the new purchaser pays 1.0% and the guy next door pays .34% for property identical in value. 1.0% is not an unreasonable tax rate for all to pay - higher in most areas - but 0.68% is not a reasonable base across all properties. You repeatedly apply your parochial experience in a Southrn State and generalize to apply it broad brush to rel estate practices, property taxes, weather impacts, etc, etc, etc. Read and learn from the folks above that have lived the actual experience. Denying the impact of a failure to collect adequate taxes on the quality schools shows a certain lack of knowledge of the real World. One of my favorite examples, and be careful this is a specific case. The Town of Lakehurst, NJ, in the 1980s was a very poor town. One nearly deserted Navy Base (Think Von Hindenburg Fire), lots of wooded and deserted farm lands, and a largely poor, minority population clustered in a "downtown" area. A huge Retirement Community (55+)called Leisure Knolls was constructed, including Single Family Detached, and high rise apartments. Pricey properties all and largely retired, wealthy owners. (Leisure is a developer with properties located all ovr the USA. NJ Schools are largely funded by Local Property Taxes, which is the case in many states. The problem in Lakehurst was the Tax Base was overwhelmingly comprised of older people that felt they had already paid for good (read expensive) schools while their Children were attending schools and darned if they'd pay for a ton of schooling for other people's children also. The tax base remained depressed, the schools got poorer and poorer. Finally the State of NJ stepped in and took over the Lakehurst Schools and funded them to higher minimum performance standard. My late parents were residents of Leisure Knoll. The same school situation existed in virtually every State in which I bought home. Shop around for jurisdictions that had seemingly good schools and inevitably you'd find a higher tax base - a meld of property values and tax rate. Essentially, locally you could group together and collect more taxes and fund better schools if so motivated. In both CA and Lakehurst in 1978 an later those jurisdictions acted to preclude this choice. In CA the Property Tax was mandated by Statewide Initiative. In Lakehurs the choice was precluded by annual voter mandate. Not blaming the poor school results and poor quality of services to not collecting enough taxes is crazy - particularly if basing that opinion on local NC experience.

IMO a two hour notice is reasonable:) It is more difficult today to get everyone's schedules together to show property so we don't kill two hours just driving around. But we do plan our showings and it is common to have notice well before two hours. The exception is when showing properties in the area and the buyer notices your house on the market and wants to see it right away :)