I was able to go inside of this house last fall. It's located in the hills in Richmond CA. The people who own it built it as a rental right next to their own. They posted it for rent on Craigslist and since I have thought of building one I decided to take a look. It is and absolutely beautiful home, both inside and out. Did not feel cramped. 

The owners said that the over all cost of building it was much higher than they anticipated and higher than regular home construction. They wouldn't tell us how much it cost them. I imagine that it was costly, as they used really unique high end finishing materials. It looked as though no expense was spared. If I recall correctly, the construction company had never done one of these before and had to learn along the way. Contractors already charge top dollar, so I bet that only added to that cost. 

From my own remodeling experience and container research, I believe that building a container home could be completed for less. Being your own general contractor and doing the finishing work yourself would lower costs. Using over stock items, like windows for instance. Since you may use a plasma cutter to cut openings for windows, they could be any size you want. Also, if you had the space to build out instead of up, that would reduce the cost. 

Anyway, even though we loved the house and got along well with the owners we didn't take the rental, as we have a couple dogs and couldn't bare the thought of any damage to such a nice home.