Jamie -- the cost of the foundation is in direct response to the terrain of the land, so the cost is not definitive untill the foundation itself has been designed.  What is a definate, is if you choose to build on a hillside you will almost always pay more for the engineering and construction costs.  If there are other homes in the vicinity than that might be a good sign -- I would at the very least look at what is already built in the area.  After that your design needs should not be limiting.

As for the lot location, we are on a narrow (10'-15' width), winding paved road with phone, electric and water in the street.  I am responsible for septic and natural gas (tank).  Getting large equipment to the site was not a concern as we figured most of the roads in the area have to be accessable to fire trucks and such.  There is the above ground electric and phone lines but we have been assured that they should not be of concern.

I settled on an architect after the purchase of the land, nearly one year after the close of escrow.  It just took me that long to figure out exactly what this house needed to accomplish for myself and family (wife and 5yr daughter 2 dogs, 2 horses which will be stabled near by).

-Mike

Thanks so much for starting this thread.  I'm in the process of shopping for land that I will hold for a few years before building on.  I'm very new to real estate and would like to know a few things:

1)  What questions do I need to ask?  I hear people speaking of things like soil reports and easements, but not sure what these are.  Is there a good list of things to ask/how to interpret the results somewhere?

2)  A property I found is basically a giant mound, very steep upslope.  It's about 10000 sqft.  There are homes in the area that are very nice and definitely worth more than a 1.2-1.5 million.  The land is only about 1/10 of that.  What sort of gotchas am I looking for?  There are plans and permits approved for the property, but they are for an ugly mediterranean style behemoth.  I'd like to build something with a modern sensibility with very low energy use.  So the question here is can I change those plans and use the same permits?  Is that a royal pain in the behind?  How much would that cost (aside from the architectural work...or is that included in the architect's fee?).  Do the permits expire?

Sorry to be such a noob, but this will be my first real estate purchase and I just want to make sure I dot the i's and cross the t's before I sign over a chunk of my life savings