Palmer, Texas.
Typical home $320,136 (-0.1% in a year). Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$803 (+92%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $214 -0%
- $320,350$320,136 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $24,865 +8%
- $295,272$320,136 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Palmer$1,680
- Texas$1,556
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 43 years.
Typical home values in Palmer, TX fell 0.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Palmer, Ellis County, Texas
Palmer is a town of 2,393 people in Ellis County. Half its households earn more than $104,258 a year and half less, against $99,595 across Ellis County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Ellis County was 4.3% in August 2026, and the county had 3.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Palmer is a small town in Ellis County, Texas, with a young population: the typical resident is younger than in most American towns. Household incomes run a little above the county's, and few residents live below the poverty line. Homes here cost more than many people expect for a town of this size, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in professional and business services, the building trades and manufacturing. Across Ellis County, the largest workplaces include Waxahachie ISD, Target and Gerdau Midlothian, the steel mill. Commutes are on the long side, and a modest share of people work from home. Jobs across the county grew over the past year, and unemployment there has stayed close to where it stood a year earlier.
Things to do. The closest of the nearby places is Texas Motorplex, a race track a short drive away. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Lake Waxahachie, a reservoir, and to the Dallas Zoo. Winters are mild and brief, summers are hot, and a fair amount of rain falls through the year.
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- 785households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ellis County had 64,686 jobs in 2025, 3.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 58° and lows near 36°; warmest in August, with highs near 96° and lows near 73°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Ferris weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ellis County
- Waxahachie ISDSchool district1,614FTE
- TargetDiscount department stores1,263
- Midlothian ISDSchool district1,229FTE
- Gerdau MidlothianMini-mills, steel1,149
- Red Oak ISDSchool district966FTE
- Ennis ISDSchool district815FTE
- Baylor SW Medical Center- WaxahachieGeneral hospital814FTE
- Dart Container WaxahachieFoam polystyrene products manufacturing791
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 169 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 23,755 people in all across the county; Palmer has none of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- HailRelatively moderate
- WildfireRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesrelatively high in parts of PalmerRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Palmer’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Ellis County and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metro.
Palmer home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Palmer$320,136
- Texas$296,424
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Palmer listings — the market is roughly in balance.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Palmer22.44%
- United States25.56%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Palmer19
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Palmer address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Palmer — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.