Designing/Building a house

After looking at a lot of houses over the last 12 months we have decided that instead of rehabbing or making significant sacrifices for our "forever" home that we are in the education phase of building our own house. Let me be perfectly clear - we are NOT going to do the work ourselves but we will hire a project manager, architect, contractor, designer, etc. who will actually do the work.

I have bought a couple books to get me started but some of the best Non-Wakeboard advice I have received on this forum.

I would appreciate any advice, lessons learned, mistakes, etc. as we begin to take on this project. We are on the hunt for land right now - it will be in Sonoma County - specifically Santa Rosa. It will be on a 2-5 acre lot in the country. We are initially thinking a ~5000 sqft home including a second living quarters for my parents and other family members. At some point I will build a massive dream garage/barn on the property but that will likely come later.

We have had a lot of people try to talk us out of this option but I am comfortable with the risks associated with building our own home.

Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts.