This Texas Boomtown Has a $30 Billion Chip Factory, and the Most Desperate Home Sellers in America - 24/7 Wall St.

This article explores the paradox of Sherman, Texas, a town experiencing a major semiconductor boom with a $30 billion chip manufacturing campus, yet showing one of the most desperate real estate mark... Read original →

Sherman, Texas’s $30B semiconductor boom reveals a stark disconnect: massive fab investment isn’t translating into local housing demand. Technically, Texas Instruments’ focus on mature-node analog chips requires fewer high-skilled workers than TSMC’s or NVIDIA’s AI-focused advanced nodes, limiting population influx. Geopolitically, CHIPS Act restrictions—barring recipients from expanding advanced capacity in mainland China for a decade—force costly supply chain reconfigurations. In response, TI adopts cautious capacity expansion to avoid inventory overhang, while TSMC accelerates North American footprint near the U.S.-Mexico border for cost-geopolitical balance. Over the next 12–24 months, similar 'industrial islands' will emerge across the U.S. South: capital-intensive fabs arrive faster than schools, housing, and infrastructure, deterring workforce relocation. The result? Slower ramp-ups and underutilized capacity. Investors must distinguish between factory groundbreaking and genuine economic activation—paper prosperity won’t power real yield.