ᐅ Stopping or pausing a home construction project? Costs too high

Good morning,

My husband and I want to build a house.
We already have the plot of land. We are now facing an unpleasant situation.

We planned the house roughly with an architect, which went very quickly.
No building permit / planning permission has been applied for yet, and no detailed execution plan has been made.
The architect provided a cost estimate that surprised us a lot.
Of course, we had previously asked acquaintances, friends, and family members about the costs of their construction projects.
Obviously, we only considered recent projects.
The architect’s estimate is more than double what we initially expected—around 4500-5000€/sqm (420-465 USD/sqft).

After this, we consulted a few others locally and two from a bit further away. Everyone seems to agree on the construction costs.
I’m not allowed to share the documents here, but there is really nothing unusual. It’s a KW40+ house with 198 sqm (2132 sqft) of living and usable space, plus a double garage attached to the left side of the house. Of course, no basement.
The specifications given to the architect were average and typical. No marble floors, no smart home features. A simple house like my uncle’s, just new.

It looks like the house will cost around 1 million euros. On top of that, of course, there are additional costs such as fees for the architect, landscaping, etc. Together with the land, the total is so high that we neither can finance it nor afford to pay it.
Unfortunately, the architect had to do quite some work before he could estimate the costs.

Now we are worried that if we cancel the project, the architect will want 15,000 to 20,000 euros for the work he has already done.

What would you do in our place?

Best regards,
Coffee82