Japanese investment in the U.S. housing market continued this year with Hajime Construction’s acquisition of a 51% equity stake in Salt Lake City, Utah-based Wright Homes.
The acquisition marks the first foray into the U.S. market for Hajime Construction, a member of Iida Group Holdings. The company established an overseas subsidiary, Hajime America, in January ahead of the transaction to provide a platform for international business expansion.
Founded in 1994, Wright Homes specializes in the development, construction, and sale of single-family homes and townhomes in the Salt Lake City metro area. President and CEO Derek Wright tells BUILDER the company’s portfolio includes entry-level for-sale townhomes; move-up and high-end single-family detached homes; and 55-plus communities. According to Zonda’s Local Leaders data, Wright Homes ranked as the sixth largest builder in the Salt Lake City metro market with a market share of 3.2% in 2024.
“We have a pretty diverse portfolio. Because we have been here 30 years and know the market, when it moves, we are pretty flexible and able to move with the market,” says Wright.
The company has developed efficient systems and processes around sourcing well-located land and constructing and selling its homes at an appropriate scale. Wright says that since the Great Recession, the company has taken a conservative approach, putting limits on volume growth targets and avoiding growing for the sake of growth. The partnership with Hajime Construction, though, allows Wright “to loosen the strings” and grow “in a much more robust way” to keep up with the consolidation and market share race occurring in the Salt Lake City metro.
Chris Jasinski, CEO of JTW Advisors, which served as the sell-side M&A advisor to Wright Homes, says the disciplined approach of Wright Homes made the company an attractive operator for Hajime Construction’s first venture into the U.S. housing market.
“They weathered the storm of the Great Financial Crisis and took a conservative approach afterward,” Jasinski tells BUILDER. “They regulated their growth, which allowed for and created a really strong balance sheet. Instead of growing, growing, growing, they have been able to build retained earnings, which has made them an attractive business. When you have a healthy balance sheet and are a profitable business, now you can begin to attract top talent and pursue the most attractive land opportunities.”
“[Since] this is Hajime’s first foray into the U.S., a few attributes are important,” Jasinski continues. “You’ve got to have a great team, you’ve got to have an owner that wants to stick around beyond the three obligatory years, you’ve got to have good systems, and you’ve got to have trust. They are getting all that in Wright Homes, a dependable business that has been resilient year in and year out.”
For Hajime Construction, Wright Homes’ proven track record and ability to achieve steady growth by leveraging its existing land assets and business model were all positives supporting the acquisition. In a release from Iida Group Holdings, Hajime cited the strong fundamentals of the Utah economy—including above average population, employment, and income growth—as well as the resilience of housing demand in northern Utah as factors in their investment.
For Wright, though, he did not get into the business with aspirations to sell and he has rebuffed approach from interested parties in the past.
“We’ve had some people approach us seriously a couple years [and] it just didn’t check all the boxes,” Wright says. “Hajime is allowing us to maintain our identity both from a marketing and brand standpoint but also from an operations standpoint. We’ve established a very efficient process and have a tendency to do more with fewer people, so not disrupting those efficiencies and our culture was very important.”
Moving forward, the companies will first focus on ensuring the stable operation of existing businesses and will share knowledge on systems and processes to create a higher value-add housing business. Hajime Construction plans to further grow its U.S. housing business with Wright Homes at its core, according to the organization.
“Given that both companies excel in land acquisition and locally rooted business operations, the two organizations believe they can achieve a business structure that combines Wright Homes’ local strengths in Utah with Hajime Construction’s group-level governance and operational framework, creating a highly compatible partnership,” Tadayoshi Horiguchi, president and representative director of Hajime Construction, said in a news release. “By combining our expertise in supplying more than 9,000 single-family homes in Japan with Wright Homes’ strengths in land acquisition and community-based operations, we aim to develop new markets while achieving sustainable growth and enhancing corporate value.”
The Big Picture
The Hajime Construction–Wright Homes partnership is the latest in a growing wave of Japanese investment in U.S. home building.
The Hajime-Wright deal represents the third transaction in 2026 involving a Japanese or Japanese-backed company expanding in the U.S. housing market. Sumitomo Forestry grew its U.S. portfolio with a $4.5 billion purchase of Tri Pointe Homes while Daiwa House-backed Stanley Martin Homes expanded in the Southeast with its $221 million acquisition of United Homes Group. The trend has been building for several years, most notably with Sekisui House’s $4.9 billion acquisition of M.D.C. Holdings in 2024.
Sekisui House’s portfolio ranked as the 6th largest U.S. home builder in 2025 with approximately 14,860 closings. Sumitomo Forestry’s portfolio across six U.S. home building brands represents approximately 18,000 annual closings while Daiwa House’s portfolio of regional hubs accounts for 8,860 closings. Beyond the three major pillars are partnerships similar in scope to the Hajime-Wright Homes merger. Misawa Homes acquired a 51% stake in Utah-based Visionary Homes in 2024 while Iida Group Holdings acquired Atlanta-based builder Patrick Malloy Communities through subsidiary Arnest One Corporation in 2025.
“Hajime continues the trend of Japanese companies acquiring U.S. home builders,” says Jasinski. “Based on our ongoing discussions with global investors, we anticipate additional Japanese home builders entering the U.S. market over the next one to two years.”
