It's actually that and dealing with permitting. The actual problem of creating some kind of durable, comfortable, shelter isn't all that hard from a technical point of view. Getting permission to build a house though is. Society kind of forces you into debt for a mortgage just to have a place that you can live in. The alternative of paying high rent is not a great alternative as you permanently lose the money.

There are all sorts of restrictions and rules that create this artificial scarcity. Even something as simple as buying a plot of land and parking a trailer on it is not legal in most places except in designated trailer parks. You can get a trailer for next to nothing. And lots of people live in them. But try finding a place where it is legal to put one down and live in one. If it were legal, lots of people would do that. Land plots are scarce and once you have one, you can't just do what you want with it in most places.

I'm just using trailers as an example here. Think prefab buildings and raw material cost. This isn't rocket science. We've been building shelters since the stone age.

There are of course good arguments for this to be made in big cities because of a lack of space. But it's equally frowned upon in areas where there's plenty of space.

He means just regular 3D printers used at home. But yeah, the title is confusing.