AUSTIN, Texas -- Home ownership has always been a part of the American Dream, but with rising costs it has become more difficult to make a reality. One Texas startup has developed a solution for that. 

"What you see behind me is the world's first site-printed and permitted 3D-printed house," Icon co-founder Jason Ballard said as he proudly showed off a uniquely made home in one East Austin neighborhood. "We printed this house in 47 hours, in quarter speed. Which means at full speed, we can easily print it in under 24 hours. We printed it for $10,000."

According to the Craftsman Book Company, which estimates home building costs, construction comes with a $295,000 price tag, including labor. It also takes up to six months to build a home. 

"After close to a decade of staring at the issues around housing, it just became obvious to me that there needed to be a better way to build houses," Ballard explained. "And where we've arrived is 3D printing."

The printer, which Ballard calls "Vulcan," can't use regular concrete. His company developed a special mix that dries quicker and can withstand extreme weather conditions, including hurricanes. 

"So, it just goes fast and the result is not an inferior product," he insisted. "Because of the way 3D printing works, the thermal envelope is more resilient and more tight and less prone to leak water, air."

To Ballard, 3D printing homes wasn't a spur of the moment idea, but rather stems from personal experience.

"I'm originally from the Gulf Coast of Texas, and my childhood home was destroyed by a hurricane," he said. 

Hurricane Gustav swept through the Houston and Beaumont areas in 2008, causing millions in damages. Since then, he was determined to find a cost-effective solution that lasts. 

"And so, getting resilient housing approaches in place, of course it's gonna be disruptive to have a natural disaster, but the rebuild time and the rebuild cost will be much lower and much faster," he said.

The prototype home in Austin won't be the only one in the world for long. 

"We have a project that we're working with, a nonprofit called New Story, in El Salvador, where we're printing a community of 100 to 150 homes beginning next year," Ballard said. "A shelter is one of the basic needs of flourishing from a human context."

"It's definitely the kind of thing that gets you out of bed in the morning," he added.