Hunt Companies Buys View Homes Amid M&A Wave

John McManus -

The growing power of a new class of homebuilding company acquirers played out earlier this month, as El Paso, TX-based investment platform Hunt Companies completed a quiet acquisition of Denver-based View Homes. This five-state operator builds under regional brand names such as Aspen View Homes, Desert View Homes, and Horizon View Homes.

The deal, finalized in early October, exemplifies an accelerating pattern in homebuilding M&A: operator-led homebuilding firms — squeezed by high borrowing costs and tightening credit markets — finding stability, scale opportunity, and strategic runway through alliances with deep-pocketed capital allocators.

This pairing, confirmed by The Builder’s Daily, brings together:

  • Hunt Companies, a privately held platform, founded in 1947, with wide-ranging real estate, infrastructure, and investment holdings — and a legacy of long-term ownership, master-planned community development, and growing interest in single-family residential verticals.
  • View Homes, a regional homebuilder operating in Texas, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, and South Dakota, with a diversified portfolio of brands and a reputation for building healthy, smart homes at accessible price points.

While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, the structure appears consistent with recent M&A deals in which an operational builder seeks long-term capital stability and growth leverage, and the acquiring partner sees strategic alignment with its broader real estate holdings or community development platforms.

A Convergence of Needs — and Opportunity

This Hunt–View Homes pairing reflects a broader confluence of motivations in the current M&A cycle.

On one side: private builders navigating a cost- and capital-constrained environment where access to acquisition, development, and construction (AD&C) funding has tightened significantly, even as demand for new homes — particularly in the attainable-price tier — continues to outpace supply.

On the other hand, institutional asset managers, principal investment platforms, and strategic long-horizon capital players seek exposure to residential real estate’s long-term secular demand thesis, without the friction of ground-up operational execution.

In such partnerships, builders gain patient capital and financial structuring expertise, while investors gain exposure to local land pipelines, field-tested operating systems, and customer relationships in high-growth regions.

View Homes: A Builder Built for Scale

With a multistate footprint and recognizable brands tailored to local markets, View Homes has operated for over 30 years, focusing on entry-level and first-move-up homes and delivering products that prioritize affordability, durability, and energy performance.

The company has grown through a mix of organic land acquisition and franchise-style brand partnerships, positioning it well for scalable expansion under a capital-rich partner like Hunt.

Its family of brands — Desert View Homes (Texas, New Mexico), Aspen View Homes (Colorado), and Horizon View Homes (South Dakota, Iowa) — all maintain distinct regional "franchise-level" operations but share a playbook focused on margin discipline, local trade relationships, and delivering value to buyers in the face of affordability headwinds.

Hunt Companies: Deep Roots, Long Vision

Hunt Companies has operated at the intersection of public-private investment, real estate development, and infrastructure for nearly eight decades.

Its diversified holdings span:

  • Master-planned community development across thousands of acres in Texas and Hawai‘i (Hunt Communities)
  • Single-family build-for-rent (BFR) communities under its dedicated division, Avanta Residential, which is active in Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Colorado
  • Low-income housing tax credit syndication, investment banking, public infrastructure services, and military housing — making Hunt one of the most integrated real estate investment platforms in the country

The acquisition of View Homes introduces a new strategic lever: in-house vertical construction capabilities for single-family homes. This could allow Hunt to:

  • Align vertical development with its master-planned community holdings, enhancing control over quality, timelines, and margins
  • Deploy its own design and construction operations across its BFR communities, potentially improving returns and delivering products tailored to renter preferences
  • Bolster View Homes' local market presence and operations with the financial scale and risk tolerance of a diversified real estate investor

Avanta Residential’s presence in Texas, Colorado, Florida, and Georgia also overlaps with View Homes’ existing or adjacent operational footprint, suggesting a potential convergence in site strategy, permitting, and product planning across both for-sale and for-rent channels.

In that light, the View Homes acquisition may not just be about geographic expansion or homebuilder investment. It may be a keystone in Hunt’s broader plan to vertically align its development, construction, and rental housing platforms — unlocking operational flywheel opportunities that deliver competitive advantage in today’s high-cost, high-risk environment.

Capital Flows Reshape the Builder Landscape

Though the Hunt–View Homes deal was unannounced at the time of closing, its significance looms large in an environment where:

  • M&A activity remains elevated — driven by private builder margin compression and tighter bank lending
  • Buyer demand is cautious at best and paralyzed at worst, constrained by affordability, rates, and macro uncertainty
  • Capital is concentrating in fewer hands, with national publics, global acquirers, and private equity-backed platforms taking share

This pattern — operator sellers aligning with capital-backers for stability, scale, and longevity — is evident in multiple recent transactions. In nearly every case, these acquisitions underscore that executional capability plus local land access are highly valued assets, even when overall market momentum is muted.

Capital Looking for Builders

While many homebuilding acquisitions of the past focused on overhead cost-cutting opportunities among operators, this rising subset of M&A deals differs. Instead of builder acquiring builder, it's often capital acquiring capability.

  • Long-horizon investors are seeking resilient, execution-focused builders with solid land pipelines and deep local knowledge.
  • For builder sellers, strategic capital partners offer breathing room in a market where debt is expensive, entitled land is scarce, and labor is both tight and costly.
  • These deals suggest that the M&A logic of 2024 and 2025 is no longer just about market share — it’s about financial infrastructure, forward momentum, and durability.

What Comes Next

As rates remain volatile and financing constraints linger, the pressure on mid-sized and even larger private builders will persist. In that climate:

  • Expect more M&A pairings that blend operational execution with financial engineering.
  • Anticipate capital platforms with exposure to SFR, build-to-rent, and master-planned communities to seek builder-partners for vertical integration.
  • And don’t be surprised to see foreign institutional capital continue its quiet march into U.S. homebuilding via similar transactions.

For Hunt and View Homes, the next phase will likely focus on growth — with View gaining the firepower to double down on existing markets, and Hunt integrating the operation into its broader residential vision.

For other private builders watching closely, the message may be clear: if you’re not planning for capital now, capital may start planning for you.