[California SF Bay Area] Build on the land or sell?

[Craig I.]

Hi All,

I'm having a big dilemma and I'm looking for some solid advice from those of you who have built homes on open plots of land. Here's my situations:

My mother has a land plot in Hayward CA and is presently worth ~$300k on Zillow/Redfin. The neighborhood is well developed with homes priced in the range of $1.1M to %1.3M. Her land plot is the only one there that doesn't have a home built on it. If we would build on the property, we'd most likely move into the property for a couple of years, take out some equity and invest in other real estate properties. Any and all thoughts, wins, horror stories, recommendations welcome!

Here's my questions:

- What's the average cost per sq foot to build in the SF Bay Area?

- What's a typical timeline look for new construction? If we were to build it would be around 2200-2500 sq ft.

- Are there financing options to build the home? If there are how are these typically structured and priced?

- Is it worth the headache and time VS selling it and investing the $300k elsewhere? 

- If you were in my scenario, what would you do and why?