Source: Wall Street

Homebuilder Lennar and building technology company Icon plan to create a community of 100 3D printed homes near Austin, Texas, next year, the largest development of 3D printed homes in the United States to date. Analysts say the 3D printing market is approaching a tipping point that could revolutionize the construction industry.

Homebuilder Lennar and building technology company Icon plan to create a community of 100 3D printed homes near Austin, Texas, next year, the largest development of 3D printed homes in the United States to date.

Icon has already built 3D printing houses before, and if this project is successful, it will be a strong proof that 3D printing technology can be applied to larger-scale housing construction. "We are growing from one, dozens of houses to hundreds," said Jason Ballard, chief executive of Icon.

Unlike traditional materials such as steel, aluminum and wood, the 3D printing structure is built by machines squeezing cement mixtures out of nozzles, like a soft whirlpool ice cream cone. This has the same manufacturing process as making dental implants, aircraft parts and other products, but on a much larger scale.

Judging from past data, Icon's 3D printed houses are priced slightly below the market price. Icon's previous four-family housing project in the Austin area with builder 3Strands was its first attempt to build a two-story house, according to the Wall Street Journal. The walls on the first floor are printed in 3D, while the walls on the second floor are built in the traditional way. In the project, a two-bedroom house was offered for $450000 and finally sold for $530000; a four-bedroom 3D printed house sold for nearly $800000. The prices of these houses are slightly lower than their counterparts in the area. In this partnership with Lennar, Lennar has not yet determined how houses in the new community will be priced, but they are likely to be similar to other Lennar-owned houses in the region.

At present, the US real estate market is one of the industries most seriously affected by supply chain and insufficient inventory. Affected by supply chain disruptions caused by the epidemic, insufficient inventories of construction materials such as wood and cement, and the reluctance of blue-collar workers receiving unemployment benefits to return to the labor market, the construction of housing construction projects in the United States has been hampered, lengthening the construction cycle and increasing construction costs, thereby affecting housing supply and affordability. 3D printed houses have the potential to solve some of the problems in the US housing market because it provides a cheaper and more efficient way to provide housing for those who need them.

According to Axios, citing Guidehouse Industries market researchers, the 3D printing market is approaching a tipping point after years of research and development. Given the current shrinking construction profits and labor shortages, 3D printing has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry. Analysts also acknowledge that it will take years for 3D printed buildings to be widely adopted.