How To Build A House In Less Than 24 Hou...

Let’s take a glimpse into the future of real estate…

Have you ever built a house before? Or done an extensive rehab? Ever thought there has to be a better way? Well there might be.

It’s called Contour Crafting.

Before we explain what Contour Crafting is, we want you to think about the some of the problems with building or renovating houses:

It takes a long time – typically 2-6 months. Or longer. During that time you are paying finance charges and not collecting revenue.
It’s expensive – Have you always estimated the costs exactly? Us neither. Rehabbers and developers know there is always something that surprises you. Budgets are almost always exceeded.
There are hazards – Working on a roof after a good rain is not the safest thing anyone has ever done.
Corruption potential – Ever feel ripped off by a contractor? There’s a reason we have contractors sign independent contractor agreements and lien waivers.
There is a ton of waste – How many dumpsters have you had to rent when doing a rehab or new construction? How many trips to the dump. Building or renovating generates a TON of garbage.

Basically, doing a full rehab or build sucks compared to a lot of other processes to make things. Many other items are produced by machines, automatically. Very little human intervention is needed.

So why not houses?

Enter Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis

Professor Khoshnevis invented the Contour Crafting technology at the University of Southern California. In its simplest terms, Contour Crafting is a way to use 3-D printing to ‘print’ a house.

And, it’s a house that can be built in less than 24 hours.

Think about all the time and money you save by doing this. All of the problems listed above are minimized or eliminated. Professor Khoshnevis claims his 3-D printer can build a 2,500 square-foot house in 20 hours.

]nternet All the workers would have to do is lay down two rails a little wider than the building’s width. Then the gantry-style crane would be set up with a nozzle that pours concrete, adobe or other recyclable materials.

The gantry would then just move back and forth based on a computer’s instructions and pour out the house. Certain other fixtures would also have to be added manually, such as electrical and plumbing, but the basic structure of the house would be in place in a day.

Humans would still have to hang doors and windows, but these are more minor tasks in housing construction. The framing for the doors and windows would already be in place.

Here is a cool video demonstrating how the technology works.

Uses for Contour Crafting

The technology for Contour Crafting has a ways to go until it can be used in a mass-market way, but it has already been used to build 10 houses in China in 24 hours using multiple printers. Really, just watch.

The total cost for those 10 houses in China is less than $5,000 a piece. Think of the rental income potential!

Although the houses are not exactly Hollywood mansions, there are a lot of potential uses for them right now:

Small offices for commercial use
Self-storage facilities
Low-income housing in poorer countries
Temporary shelter after a disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane

Another feature of these houses is that you can change the design of the house just by changing the computer program. You don’t have to build the same house over and over again.

The printer can also change shapes easily. If you want curved walls, for instance, it would be relatively easy to write that into the computer program. Contrast that with the challenge of making curved walls with regular lumber and drywall.

One Dutch Architect, Janjaap Ruijssenaars, is using 3-D printing to build a commercial building that people could use as a museum or a way to highlight views of a beautiful piece of nature.

musem The great thing about 3-D printing, he says, is that it is only constrained by the artist’s imagination. With traditional concrete construction, you have to build a frame around what you are building and then pour the concrete into it. He sees this as highly inefficient.

Most of these houses and buildings still need humans for final assembly. The 3-D printer prints out a lot of components but definitely can’t fit everything together. Nevertheless, the technology is there to disrupt the construction industry. Technology will make some serious changes in how the residential and commercial construction industry works in the future.

Got Something to Add?

What do you see the future looking like with this emerging technology? Let’s hear it in the comments section below.

Brainstorm – Great entrepreneurs are constantly thinking of how they can adapt new technologies to not-so-obvious uses. What other ways could 3-D printers help real estate investors?

Research the Competition – Are other investors or builders using new technologies in your area? Should you also try to adapt the technology or differentiate yourself by going in another direction?

Stay Up to Date – The real estate industry is constantly changing. Allocate some of your time to see what new emerging trends are and what is falling out of favor. Then ride the waves up and step off before they start moving down.