Buying land in the Bay Area. What's the catch?

[Tyler D.]

I currently live in the SF Bay area, and am renting as I cannot afford a $1.5m+ house. As both rents and mortgages are astronomically expensive, I'm looking at alternatives.

One is buying land. In the peninsula, there are many plots of land available for several $100k, or even less. In particular, there is a lot of land around boulder creek/ Scotts valley for very cheap. It might be a bit more of a rural lifestyle, and add an extra 10mins to my commute, but that's more than worth the savings, to me.

Assuming that I do my DD and the lot is indeed buildable, I'm wondering what's the catch?