This Texas Boomtown Has a $30 Billion Chip Factory, and the Most Desperate Home Sellers in America
The Parcl Labs Motivated Seller Index just delivered one of the strangest data points of the 2026 housing cycle. Sherman, Texas, a city of 52,000 people, scored a 7.0, tied with Tampa, Florida, for the highest reading of any major…
The Parcl Labs Motivated Seller Index just delivered one of the strangest data points of the 2026 housing cycle. Sherman, Texas, a city of 52,000 people, scored a 7.0, tied with Tampa, Florida, for the highest reading of any major metro with more than 1,000 listings. The national average sits at 5.1. Sherman is where Texas Instruments turned on its first fab in December 2025, part of a planned $30 billion campus. Six months into production at the largest new industrial project in North Texas, home sellers there are more desperate than those in hurricane-battered Florida.
What a 7.0 on the MSI Actually Means
Parcl Labs measures price cuts, days on market, and listing behavior to gauge buyer leverage. A score of 7.5 is “fire selling.” Sherman is approaching that threshold. In dollar terms, a seller of a $450,000 home at the national 5.1 typically accepts about $11,565 below list. At Sherman’s 7.0, the discount runs materially larger. The comparison to Tampa is telling: 1 in 7 US homes for sale is in Florida, 45% of Florida listings have taken a price cut, and 1 in 10 Florida homes are priced below what the owner paid. Sherman, boomtown of the CHIPS Act era, screens the same way.
The Factory Is Real. So Is the Discount.
Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN | TXN Price Prediction) broke ground in May 2022 on the first of potentially four Sherman fabs. GlobalWafers began production at its $4 billion silicon wafer plant in May 2026, supplying TI and TSMC for Apple chips. Total semiconductor investment in the corridor is roughly $35 billion, with 3,000 to 4,000 TI positions and 1,500 GlobalWafers jobs expected at full buildout. The Sherman-Denison metro carried 55,000 nonfarm jobs and 3.9% unemployment in April 2026, tighter than the 4.3% national rate that month.
The housing data tells a different story. Redfin shows Sherman prices down 8.1% year over year through May 2026, with a median sale near $285,000, homes sitting 79 to 111 days, and selling roughly 3% below list. Active inventory: 1,784 listings.
Why the Paradox Exists
Four forces explain the gap. First, the announcement-to-impact lag: speculators bought in 2022 at pandemic-era prices and low rates and are now selling into a 6.54% mortgage environment. Second, overbuilding: Centurion American Development bought nearly 1,500 acres, and builders are offering rate buydowns that undercut resale sellers. Third, a multifamily glut: about 5,100 of 6,500 units are occupied after 2,200 new apartments arrived in two years. Fourth, many TI workers commute from Collin County suburbs rather than relocate.
The pattern is national. Taylor, Texas, home to Samsung’s $17 billion fab, shows prices down 9.1% year over year. Austin ranks 4th on the MSI at 6.9. Phoenix and Columbus follow the same script.
The Investing Read
TI itself is performing well. Q1 2026 revenue hit $4.83 billion, up 18.58% year over year, with diluted EPS of $1.68. The company received a $555 million CHIPS Act payment tied to the Sherman start-up. CFO Rafael Lizardi noted $2 billion to $3 billion of CapEx for 2026. The stock is up 71.03% year to date to $299.31. (For readers curious how similar buildouts feed non-chipmaker names, 24/7 Wall St. covers the ecosystem in 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren’t Chipmakers).)
For a buyer with a three-to-five-year horizon, a 7.0 MSI in a town with a working $30 billion fab is meaningful leverage. For an investor, the same score warns that the workforce may commute rather than relocate. Sherman is either the most misunderstood real estate market in America, or proof that boomtown announcements and boomtown real estate run on entirely different clocks.
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I've spent more than 15 years inside enterprise software, working alongside the finance, sales operations, and HR leaders who run the revenue engines at some of the largest tech companies in the country.
My day job is helping enterprise executives make smarter decisions about retention, compensation, and growth. These are the same operational levers that show up in every earnings report investors actually read. That perspective shapes my writing for 24/7 Wall St.
The headline numbers are easy. The interesting stuff is underneath: how companies make money, what executives are worried about, and what any of it means for the person checking their 401(k) on a Sunday afternoon. I write about personal finance and business as someone who has spent her career inside the rooms where these decisions get made.
