Unfortunately, most of those needs are extremely variable, even within the same town! The reason being is that you need to know the soil type, and whether it can handle a septic system, and how hard it might be to find water. For a septic system, they do a 'perc' (percolation) test to see how well the soil drains. Normally, this is done as a contingency for the sale of the land, or should be. We paid up front ($280) to have the test done before we bought our land. As for wells, only an expert with local knowledge can tell you, and even then, they may not find potable water. Well drilling can run from a couple thousand to tens of thousands.

The electricity and propane shouldn't cost much, although I'm basing everything on South Carolina, which is a cheap area to build. CA is one of the most expensive, in general.

Your local building inspector could probably get you started with some ballpark numbers. They can also tell you what kind of financial and other hurdles you may run into regarding permits. In some places, that can be a LOT of money.

The difference between the two properties is $60K, which should be more than enough for utilities, but you better find out for sure. Here in SC, the septic system was $4500, we don't have well, but they typically run $2-6,000, and the electricity was a couple hundred bucks. Another cost is clearing and cutting in a driveway. I assume the place with the shack already has some kind of driveway.

Another consideration in cost is how far they need to run the electricity or natural gas, and whether they need to put up a pole on your side of the street.

There is more to prepping land than running utilities-- you will probably also want a driveway (which in my area needed to be approved by the county) and may need land cleared for both the house and the septic.

I'm in Nova Scotia Canada so my costs really aren't comparable, but just to say my estimated costs are: $10,000 septic, $5000-$10,000 drilled well (bedrock everywhere here), gravel driveway $150/linear foot (so $30,000 for a 200 foot driveway), excavation fill and clearing depends on lot, power poles free for one, $1000 for every subsequent pole.

If the two lot sizes are about the same, perhaps the shack with utilities already on it would be cheaper. Only because you are in California. :) Nova Scotia sounds dreamy right about now!

It does vary from county to county, but our costs for the septic soil testing (done in the last 6 months), county site visit fees, septic permit, engineering and actual system will be over 20k. You won't know much about your septic costs or system design until you get a soils report and perc test... and then you'll submit your design to Environmental Health. There are some great new systems out there, but EH doesn't always like those and won't approve them.

Power: The power is likely to be the biggest cost and could easily eat up the difference. If you don't have far to go, it may not be a big deal. Ours will be between 35k-75k plus the cost of a power pole, which is around 20k around here. But usually it needs to be underground these days and then you will have trenching and engineering. It really depends on your power easements, etc. Any driveways and grading could be costly. Any site approval or environmental issues could provide delays and enormous unknown costs. If you need to drill a well, you'll need a permit, plus the drilling cost, plus the water tests, plus another permit to use it for your home. And water is drying up in alot of the more shallow wells in our state.

An already developed shack will probably save you a year or two of time and a little money even if you raze it. But you'd need to make sure the septic system was large enough for the home you intended to build (usually based on bathrooms rather than square footage here). But at least you'd have power and water!

All said though, if you fall in love with a lot/piece of land - it may be worth it to develop it yourself. In our case, we are so glad we did it!

There is major variation. We were not able to do a standard septic so we had to have some kind of fancy thing (drip system) and that was like $35K. Just for the septic. Well, it depends upon whether you hit water. Ours was supposed to be $5,000 but it was $10K b/c we had to go deep. Our neighbors ended up having to dynamite to get water, so who knows what they spent!

I would probably buy the land w/ all the utility hook-ups on there (after an inspection to make sure all was in good condition) to save the headache and uncertainty.