If you have been comparing Sherwood against Tualatin, Tigard, or Wilsonville and came across the headline that Metro approved roughly 1,300 acres of new land for the city, you might reasonably assume that means relief is coming to a market that has stayed tight for years. Thousands of new homes sound like the kind of supply shock that softens prices and gives buyers room to breathe.
Here is the number that should recalibrate that assumption: as of the most recent reporting from the Sherwood Sun, published about three weeks ago, the City of Sherwood has received zero annexation or land use applications tied to that newly opened land since January 2026. Not delayed. Not slow. Zero.
Understanding why that gap exists, and how long it is likely to persist, matters more to a comparison shopper than the acreage figure itself.
What Metro actually approved
In 2024, Metro's council voted 6-1 to expand the region's Urban Growth Boundary to include Sherwood West, a 1,291-acre area designated as Urban Reserve Area 5B and bordered by SW Lebeau Road to the north and SW Chapman Road to the south. The Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland, which lobbied for the expansion, put the potential yield at between 3,100 and 5,600 new homes and roughly 4,500 jobs, alongside parks and natural areas.
That approval followed a concept plan the Sherwood City Council had already accepted in July 2023, itself built on planning work that started in 2021. The land is real. The vote is real. What is not real yet is anything resembling a construction timeline.
The mechanism that keeps this from touching this year's market
City planning documents lay out a sequence that runs on years, not months. An appeal of Metro's decision went to the state's Land Conservation and Development Commission in 2025, and the LCDC upheld Metro's approval that September, with final written findings expected to follow. From there, the city has said comprehensive planning alone, the step that sets zoning and broad land use policy before any master plan work on roads, sewer, and water even starts, could take up to three and a half years.
Laid out in sequence, the runway looks like this:
- 2021 to 2023: Sherwood West Re-Look concept planning process runs, and the City Council accepts the updated concept plan in July 2023.
- 2024: Metro approves the UGB expansion for all of Sherwood West.
- 2025: The decision is appealed to the Department of Land Conservation and Development and then the LCDC, which upholds Metro's approval in September.
- 2026: The city awaits final written findings and may begin comprehensive planning, a process city officials estimate could take up to three and a half years on its own.
- Years beyond that: Only after zoning and infrastructure plans are set does the standard land use review process open for individual development proposals, followed by annexation of individual properties as owners or developers request it.
City officials have been direct about what this means in practice. Development in Sherwood West is not expected to begin for at least five to six years after the land entered the UGB, and full buildout is expected to take several decades. If you are pricing a home today against the assumption that thousands of new units are about to hit the market, the timeline says otherwise for most of this decade.
A second layer of friction just got added
Even after that planning runway plays out, a new local mechanism stands ready to slow things further. In a January 13, 2026 special election, Sherwood voters passed two charter amendments by wide margins. Measure 34-347 passed with 94.2% approval and requires at least one neighborhood meeting and one public hearing before the City Council can rule on major land use applications, while restoring a 1,000-foot property owner notification radius that a recent state law had narrowed to 100 feet. Measure 34-348 passed with 82.7% approval and gives the city exclusive authority over annexation decisions, specifying that those decisions cannot be overruled by state law.
Mayor Tim Rosener framed the vote as a response to state preemption bills, including HB 2001, that limit how much control cities retain over growth. He has been careful to distinguish the city's position from simple resistance to housing. On what he sees as the real obstacle to production, Rosener put it plainly: the barriers are "infrastructure, lower land costs and investment," not local notification rules.
Whether that framing holds up matters less to a house hunter than the practical result so far. Sherwood's community development director, Eric Rutledge, confirmed in the same recent Sherwood Sun report that the city has not received a single land use or annexation application affected by the amendments since they took effect. The legal and political debate over local control versus state housing mandates continues, but on the ground, nothing has moved.
There is a smaller version of this same pattern already playing out inside the current city limits. Oregon's HB 2001 already requires Sherwood to allow duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and cottage clusters in areas that were previously zoned for single-family homes only. The zoning permission exists today, not in some future comprehensive plan. Yet Rosener has pointed out that developers in Sherwood still favor single-family detached construction because it is more profitable. The lesson repeats at two different scales: a law or a vote that technically permits more housing does not automatically produce it. Financing, land cost, and builder incentives decide what actually gets built, and those forces move on their own schedule.
What the current market shows while all of this plays out
None of the above means Sherwood's market is stagnant. It means the near-term supply picture is set by what already exists, not by what has been approved on paper.
Recent figures from different sources tell a consistent story even where the exact numbers diverge. As of August 2026, listing data put Sherwood's median asking price at roughly $670,000, down about 5% from the prior month and from the same time last year, with homes spending a median of 73 days on market. Earlier in the year, over the three months ending in April 2026, the median sale price ran lower, at $631,000, up 1.8% from the same period a year earlier, with homes taking around 29 days to sell on average and drawing roughly two offers each. Zillow's broader home value estimate, last updated around the end of June 2026, put the average home value near $652,500, down slightly year over year, with homes going to pending status in about 11 days.
Those figures do not all point the same direction, which is itself worth sitting with rather than smoothing over. What they agree on is that Sherwood remains a market where homes move in weeks, not months, and where price direction is closer to flat than falling. Part of that has nothing to do with Sherwood West at all. Roughly three out of four Sherwood households are owner-occupied, which keeps resale inventory naturally tight regardless of what gets approved on the city's western edge.
What this means if you are comparing suburbs right now
If Sherwood West is part of your reasoning for choosing Sherwood over a neighboring suburb, treat it as a long-horizon consideration rather than a near-term price lever. The land is entitled for growth. The homes are not being built, permitted, or even formally proposed yet, and the layered approval process, now with an added local notification and annexation step, gives no indication that changes soon.
For a buyer comparing what your money actually buys today, the more useful comparison is between Sherwood's existing neighborhoods, not between Sherwood's present and its someday. Entry-level inventory sits in the city's older sections and on smaller lots, while established neighborhoods and newer subdivisions built over the past two decades command the middle and upper end of the current range. That existing stock, not a 1,291-acre reserve years from its first shovel, is what will actually be available to you this year.
A few questions worth asking directly
Will Sherwood West lower home prices in Sherwood? Not in any timeframe relevant to a purchase decision made in 2026. City officials project at least five to six years before construction begins and decades for full buildout, and the January 2026 charter amendments add a further local review layer before any project can move.
Has any Sherwood West land actually been annexed into the city yet? No. As of the most recent city reporting, comprehensive planning has not concluded, and no property owner has filed an annexation application under the framework the amendments established.
Does the home rule vote affect permits or listings I might see today? Not directly. The city's community development director has stated the amendments have not changed the development review process because no applications subject to them have been filed.
If middle housing like duplexes is already legal in Sherwood, why don't I see much of it? State law requires cities like Sherwood to permit it, but permission does not guarantee construction. City leadership has pointed to builder economics, land cost, and financing as the reasons single-family detached homes remain the more common product.
Sherwood's growth story is real, and it is also slow by design, layered with state review, city planning, and now a voter-reinforced local approval process. If you want a clearer read on how that timeline intersects with what is actually available to buy or list in Sherwood right now, The Lankheet Group can walk through the current inventory with you and help you separate the headline from the timeline.
