How do you hire an architect?

My husband and I own a condo in Michigan where home values are in the gutter. We have attempted several times to do a short sale so that we can buy something larger but the deals keep falling through. We are not open to foreclosing because we care enough about our neighbors and community that we dont want to contribute to ever-declining home values. Recently our neighbor that shares a wall with our townhouse foreclosed or at least he has left and he has not payed association fees in 3 months so we assume he is foreclosing. We have been tossing around the idea of buying his condo and adjoining it with ours by knocking down the center wall. When we took the floorplan we have on paper and modified it with how we think it should be remodeled---it shows great potential. Of course we are not architects and have no idea what we are doing. But we need to get a professional opinion without spending too much money in case we are not able to buy the condo for some reason or another. How do we go about seeking out an architect to give us an opinion? About how much would such an opinion cost and are there architects who specilize in this kind of work?