Sekisui House U.S. CEO David Viger on bringing Japan-inspired resiliency to U.S. homes

When Osaka, Japan-based Sekisui House bought MDC Holdings, the parent company of Richmond American Homes, for $4.9 billion in 2024, the company not only made a long-term bet on the American market but also reinforced its commitment to bringing its resilient and sustainable building practices to the U.S.

In an announcement following the acquisition, Sekisui House CEO Yoshihiro Nakai underscored this mission when he proclaimed that the expanded company would “become a one-of-a-kind entity in the U.S. by combining Japanese and U.S. technologies.”

The company, the seventh-largest homebuilder by sales volume in HousingWire’s inaugural homebuilder rankings, is now making good on that pledge. Sekisui U.S. has already unveiled eight of its signature, highly sustainable and resilient SHAWOOD-branded communities, and has active plans to deliver more. 

Sekisui House, alongside other Japan-based real estate giants such as Sumitomo Forestry and Daiwa House, continues to expand its presence in the American market. Recent estimates now peg Japanese firms’ share of the U.S. homebuilding market at 6%, and this share is growing at an accelerated pace.

According to the HousingWire Homebuilder Rankings, Sekisui House closed 11,712 homes worth a combined $6.7 billion in fiscal year 2025, making the company the largest Japanese builder in the nation. Sumitomo Forestry, ranked tenth, had 10,262 closings worth a combined $5.24 billion. 

With a focus on precision manufacturing and sustainability, Japanese builders are carving out a distinct niche in the American homebuilding market as they scale, and Sekisui House U.S. is helping to lead the charge. Drawing on the expertise and philosophy of its Japanese parent company, the builder is now bringing those principles to the U.S.

In an interview with HousingWire TBD, Sekisui House U.S. CEO David Viger discussed the company’s long-practiced emphasis on resilient, sustainable and durable design, why it matters to buyers, and how the firm is implementing these initiatives as it expands and operationalizes its American homebuilding portfolio.

Japan-inspired resiliency and durability

Japanese builders have a strong focus on resilience and sustainability, in part, because of the tough weather conditions that homes in Japan must endure. In Tokyo, for example, homes must be built to a high standard to withstand powerful earthquakes and typhoons, especially in the long-term. 

This focus on resilient home design is a big part of the Sekisui House approach in the United States. 

“The first thing I would say, from my experience and my involvement with the corporate team in Japan, is that they really don’t separate those aspirations between the U.S. and Japan,” Viger explained. 

The builder’s signature SHAWOOD home brand represents the pinnacle of those aspirations. At Sommers Bend in Temecula, CA, one of the first SHAWOOD projects in the United States, each of the branded homes includes solar panels, an EV charger and an integrated battery storage system. 

Part of what sets SHAWOOD apart is its Japanese-inspired approach to homebuilding, which treats the home as a precisely-engineered system. The brand’s proprietary wood-framing system is designed to create a tighter, stronger and more energy-efficient building envelope through its precision-manufactured connections, including specialized metal joints and glulam post-and-beam components.

Together, these features work to make the home more sustainable and durable. Every SHAWOOD house has an estimated 65% less air leakage and is built to net-zero energy readiness, which reduces ongoing utility costs. Premium models include battery-backed solar that keeps the home running during power outages, a useful design feature in areas prone to extreme weather.

The brand also integrates a range of environmentally conscious materials and construction methods, including sustainably certified timber, durable, fire-retardant ceramic wall panels and low-VOC finishes. This process reflects Sekisui House’s focus on building homes for both short-term and long-term performance.

Sekisui House, founded in 1960, has been researching, developing and improving its process for more than 60 years. 

“What’s really exciting about SHAWOOD is how advanced it is compared to what we would normally be doing here in the U.S., and it’s not by accident. It’s very much intentional and based on really strict guidelines and research,” Viger explained. “Most of our states will not experience what a home in Tokyo could go through in a single year, and I think being able to take that and build up to the same standard is special and something that I’ve been very excited about being able to implement here in the U.S.”

Viger pointed out the importance of building for resiliency, particularly in states like Florida, California and others that are susceptible to severe weather. To this end, he argued that SHAWOOD could challenge the perception that concrete block is the safest option for Florida homes. This is because SHAWOOD homes can provide hurricane resilience without relying on traditional block construction, meaning it could allow builders to create more open floor plans and architectural designs that are sometimes difficult to achieve with block structures. 

Belburn, the material used as the home’s exterior cladding, also provides significant heat and fire resistance. Taken together, Viger sees these technologies as potentially momentous for the U.S. housing market, because of the ability to pair design flexibility with better protection against hurricanes, fires, earthquakes and other extreme weather events. 

Standardizing and implementing these practices

The eight existing SHAWOOD communities are in Las Vegas, Northern and Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. Sekisui House views these communities as a strategic inroad for its stateside resiliency growth, and the brand has an ongoing pipeline of land that stretches into Texas. 

By 2032, the builder hopes to build 3,000 SHAWOOD-branded homes in the United States.

“Shawood is such a special and unique proposition, and something that we will always revere as the gold standard. It will always be aspirational for us and the industry to continue to try to build to that standard,” Viger said. 

Despite the focus on resiliency, Sekisui House has so far kept its U.S. homebuilding operator subsidiaries – Richmond American Homes, Woodside Homes, Chesmar Homes, Holt Homes and Hubble Homes – running autonomously under their established brands, with little change to their traditional construction methods and home offerings.

Sekisui House has already begun transferring the building techniques, materials and construction standards developed through SHAWOOD into its legacy U.S. brands and product lines. However, SHAWOOD remains the company’s gold standard, and executives do not expect every or even most homes across its portfolio to match that standard, at least not immediately.

Instead, the builder plans to progressively expand its Japan-inspired home designs and technology over time. 

Sekisui House, like many other Japan-based builders, views homebuyers as long-term customers. In Japan, the builder offers an initial 30-year warranty program for maintenance and repairs, and offers renovation and rebuilding services for decades after construction is complete. This philosophy is derived, in part, from the builder’s focus on resilient and durable construction. 

Viger said that Sekisui House is exploring how to bring Japan’s long-term customer philosophy to the U.S., but it likely won’t roll out a carbon copy of the Japanese warranty and maintenance programs because the two markets have different systems. However, in his view, that philosophy goes beyond simply offering a longer warranty. In a broad sense, Sekisui House aims to deliver homes to the U.S. market that are so durable and well-built that homeowners experience less wear and tear and maintenance issues over time. 

Consumer reception and education

According to Viger, SHAWOOD-branded homes have received a tremendous market reception, indicating that the technology is serving an untapped market. 

“The amount of traffic that we get to a SHAWOOD community versus a traditional subdivision is a resounding difference, in just the mass of people who are interested in this brand and what it represents. I think right there, you can see that the consumer understands and appreciates those efforts,” Viger said. 

“Cost can be a limiting factor, and it’s our job to continue to focus on how to get this to more and more buyers, where it’s less limiting. But I think the concept that someone is building a product like this and continuing to get this out there is clearly very exciting to the U.S. consumer,” he added. 

Viger emphasized that most homebuyers are not professional homebuilders or engineers, meaning they may not know to ask about many of the features that contribute to a home’s longevity and resilience. As a result, the industry has a responsibility not only to offer better-performing homes, but also to educate consumers about why those features matter. 

Educating U.S. consumers about the benefits of these building standards will be a long-term effort, partially because people aren’t used to this sort of building practice. Also, as building technology and expectations continue to evolve, the education process will remain ongoing. 

Regardless, Viger is encouraged by the initial reaction to the SHAWOOD communities. With their emphasis on durability, he expects that Japanese builders like Sekisui House and others will positively impact the way that homes are built in the United States. 

“I think that [Japan-headquartered builders] will absolutely reshape the industry. I know that their intended goal is to reshape it. When you hear things like “we want to be game changers”, there’s nothing about that comment that says we want to just assimilate into how things just happen, and I think that’s a good thing,” he said.