You cannot compare the cost of a Watercolor house with the cost of a house in Niceville. They are two different animals. I am going to generalize here, so bear with me.
A typical Niceville home is usually one or maybe two stories. Probably square or rectangular, maybe with a rectangular wing, giving it an 'L' shape in plan. The 2 car garage is attached with a big double-wide garage door. A low pitch hip roof with a mid-grade asphalt shingle finish. Boxed in overhang with T-111 soffit finish. The foundation is slab on grade (pouring concrete right on the ground), windows are vinyl (maybe builder-grade aluminium) single hung with an average of two per room, probably double-pane insulated, but no muntins and no impact glass. Fiberglass entry and rear door and insulated steel garage door, but not impact rated. Insulation is fiberglass batt in the walls and lay-in batt on the ceiling. Interior ceiling height is 9'-0". Interior finishes are nice, with drywall walls, tile or 1/2" thick engineered wood floors in bathroom and public spaces, with carpet in the bedrooms, 6'-8" tall flush hollow core interior doors, 3" 3-step base and opening trim, no crown at the ceiling. Kitchen is nice, with pre-manufactured box cabinets (painted or stained), granite countertops, typical appliance package in stainless steel finish. Bathrooms are nice, with pre-manufactured vanities.
A typical Watercolor house is two and a half stories, usually with a tower or some other roof feature. It is rectangular and usually has a small wing, but will have multiple bump-outs and bays, giving it a more complex shape. It has a continuous strip footing, which involves trenching down and filling the trench with concrete. The floor is a raised at least 30" and is wood frame beams and joists resting on concrete block piers, which rest on the strip footing. Already, the costs for materials and labor have far outpaced the slab on grade Niceville house. The roof is simple in form, but typically has dormers (with windows) and possibly a dutch gable detail. All overhangs are exposed rafter tails with a detail profile cut into each tail. Overhangs are typically 30"+ deep, with v-groove or exposed soffit finish. The typical roofing material is galvalume. Many times galvalume half-round gutters and round downspouts are used to control water flow. Layered trim details and banding are typical, as well as custom-built solid wood brackets under bays and overhang extensions. The windows are aluminum clad wood with insulated impact glass, double-hung or casement (though I think most everyone installs single-hung these days) with simulated-lite muntins. There are an average of four window per room (multiple window compositions in the stairwell, roof tower, and window seat bay. Multiple aluminum-clad French doors leading to porches (impact rated with 3-point locking systems), an engineered Mahogany entry door (engineered for impact acceptance), stained or painted wood cladding on two singe-width impact rated garage doors. Insulation is closed-cell foam underneath the floors, possibly in the walls, and open-cell foam to the bottom of the roof decking. Interior ceiling heights are typically 10' or 12', which in turn requires more drywall (and mud/paint and accompanying labor). Interior finishes are reclaimed wood floors ( 3/4" thick solid) throughout the public and bedroom spaces, 8' tall solid core wood or MDF doors, 8"+ base trim, multi-layer door trim with caps, crown trim at the ceilings. Kitchen cabinets are custom-made, as are the built-in bench seating and bookshelves, as well as the bathroom vanities. Commercial grade appliances and cabinet-depth refrigerator (cabinet depth alone = $5,000 increase) plus tankless water heaters.
Was that a general enough breakdown?
So, to summarize, almost each item on a Watersound-type house is an significantly upgraded version of a Niceville house item. Each and every one of those items contributes incrementally to the cost difference, making it impossible to compare the two.
If you want to simplify the comparison, price a builder grade vinyl window against a Weathershield impact-rated aluminum clad window.
However, I cannot argue that there is not what I call a 'Bridge Tax' on subcontractor labor. I don’t have the numbers, but labor charges in SoWal vs Bay county are different, I am sure. It is unfortunate, but, as Marmot said, is simply a supply and demand equation.