Stick with What’s Proven: You’re an Investor, Not an Experiment(er)

Every year, there’s a flashy new building material or construction method claiming to reinvent the game. Hempcrete, 3D-printed homes, shipping container builds, earthbag construction, recycled plastic bricks, you name it. They all promise faster, cheaper, greener. But let me be real with you: the moment you trade “proven and familiar” for “experimental and exciting,” you’re signing up for a world of headaches.

Let’s talk about hempcrete. Yes, it’s incredible on paper, non-toxic, mold-resistant, great insulator. But it’s not like you can roll up to Home Depot and load your truck with the materials. Supply is limited, logistics are tricky, and trades need specific training to use it properly. Try finding subs in your area who’ve actually worked with the stuff before. Now imagine trying to explain to your city’s building department that your new build isn’t a front for a grow house. Sound fun? It’s not.

Then there’s 3D-printed housing. Looks cool in a YouTube video, but you don’t see them lining your streets for a reason. The setup and teardown of the printers is massive, the machinery needs constant calibration, and even humidity shifts throughout the day can throw off the concrete mix. You need specialty operators, customized materials, and a whole lot of hope that nothing goes sideways mid-pour. And what happens when you need to fix or remodel down the line? Who’s trained to handle it? Who has the tools?

Shipping containers? Great for pop-up shops and edgy design blogs. In real life, they’re ovens in the summer, ice boxes in the winter, and they take serious retrofitting to meet code, if you can get them to pass at all. Earthbag homes? Same deal. Sure, you might have seen someone build one in the desert on YouTube. But try pulling a permit for that in your city or finding a lender who won’t laugh when they see your floor plan.

Now let’s be clear: I’m not anti-innovation, and I’m definitely not against sustainable building. In fact, there are plenty of green products that have earned their place, spray foam insulation, high-efficiency HVAC systems, solar-ready roofing, water-saving plumbing fixtures, recycled composite decking. These are green solutions that have stood the test of time, are supported by code, understood by trades, and available off the shelf. That’s the difference: they’re not a fad. They’re a proven upgrade, not an uphill battle.

As an investor, your job is to minimize risk and maximize return. That means you don’t want to be the guinea pig. You don’t want to train your trades, fight with your city, or educate your buyers. You want to build things that appraise well, rent easy, sell fast, and don’t fall apart when you hand them off.

So unless you’ve got the time, money, and patience to play pioneer, stick with what works. Systems that are easy to source, easy to build, and easy to fix. That’s not boring. That’s called being smart.

- Jeph Burnett
Real Estate Investment Guide

“We turn problems into profits. That’s the model, that’s the pitch.”