Wells Fargo to offer mortgage incentives on 3D printed homes with Icon

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In the race to build more efficient and affordable housing, 3D printing is becoming increasingly feasible and popular. However, financing homes is still a significant obstacle. This is about to change.

Wells FargoOne of the country’s largest mortgage lenders, together with Icon, the biggest player in the 3D construction field, announces that it will write mortgages on houses built with Icon technology and will also offer an incentive to buyers. Wells Fargo will provide 50 basis point lending credit to Icon homebuyers who use their mortgages.

Icon has been working with the Wells Fargo Foundation, its philanthropic arm, on 3D printed communities for people without housing for several years. Wells Fargo will now be Icon’s preferred lender for 3D printed homes offered for sale.

“We think the technology produced by Icon has the potential to reduce construction costs and accelerate homebuilding at a time when we are seeing greater challenges in housing affordability and access to homeownership,” said Serhat Öztop, CEO of Wells Fargo home loans. “Through this partnership, Wells Fargo is closing the gap between access to homeownership with this new technology.”

Historically, 3D printed homes have had difficulty achieving traditional mortgage financing. Lenders had concerns about the feasibility of the technology, the potential appreciation of the homes, and the ability to both sell and insure the loans. Lennar’s own mortgage arm handled all financing on the new Lennar community Icon completed in Texas last year.

“Even though our testing and results are all in the books, having one of the big banking players make a strong, meaningful announcement saying, ‘We love these homes, we’re excited about these homes, we’re actually going to give these homes preferential treatment,’ helps people understand and believe that this technology and the homes it produces are ready for prime time,” said Jason Ballard, founder and CEO of Icon.

There were concerns that these homes would not appreciate at the same rate as traditional homes, but this appears to be abating. The first Lennar-Icon 3D printed community sold quickly, and a larger community is currently under construction.

“We have no reason to believe that the long-term value of these homes will be any different than homes built based on traditional construction technologies,” Oztop said.

Ballard wants to expand the technology to other builders. He said that since the company’s founding in 2017, its goal has been to become a tool maker and put these 3D printing tools into the hands of builders and developers around the world. He said he wanted to “enable a higher speed, lower cost, higher quality housing revolution.”

To this end, Icon will now sell its new “Titan” 3D printers to developers. This new generation technology can print multi-storey structures that previous versions could not. Price tag: $899,000.

Wells Fargo will offer financing to builders willing to purchase the printers, signaling corporate confidence in alternative construction.

“I think Wells Fargo is now giving confidence to builders and developers who want to put this tool in their holster or their tool belt, so to speak, that, ‘I’m going to deliver a product that’s market ready and I’m not going to run into unforeseen obstacles,’” Ballard said.

Ballard added that printer sales are currently nearly double the company’s internal targets, with hundreds of them already reserved. There are also rental options. Buyers make a $5,000 deposit and then go through training.

“It will take us a minute to be able to produce hundreds of products at a time,” he joked.