Not necessarily the case - my sister just had a home built on land in Dallas and the cost was not much more than new home cost ($129/living sq ft), before that

Not necessarily the case - my sister just had a home built on land in Dallas and the cost was not much more than new home cost ($129/living sq ft), before that my father built the home we grew up in nearby himself. There's a reason Dallas, Houston, and Austin are at the top of the new home construction numbers - low regulatory overhead make every scale of home building manageable, including self-starting new home construction. Meanwhile the benchmark for new construction starts in SF is 3-5 years just to navigate the intial regulatory approval for construction. Try navigating that as an individual just trying to get a home built for yourself. It's basically impossible.