This is what I want to do; walk away and buy used. However, my wife want the cabinets/counters/tile that SHE wants, not that someone else wanted. She also wants a newly built house, not someone else's "dirty house." She has always had a problem with used things. I have to agree that purchasing a used home and refinishing everything will cost as much as building new, so we might as well do that.
We also have the problem that we want a modest (small) house in a very nice neighborhood. The house have planned is half the size of the other houses in the area (one to two mile radius). No houses like we want have come up for sale in over a year of looking.
I do not want to make my wife sound like a ogre, she earned half the money that will be paying for it, and this is the first splurge she has ever made in her life.
My real complaint is that everyone has dishonest with me at every step. If they had been honest up front, I could have decided whether or not I wanted to build and moved forward. Instead it has been: we can building you a house for 200K, well, not really, it's 300K. Oh, after further evaluation it is 400K. Oh, you also wanted an AC and plumbing? OK, its 450K. Well, we missed something, it is now 500K. I cannot take it anymore.