According to HousingWire's analysis of Realtor.com data, we're seeing a significant shift in where large data centers are being built across the country, and it's directly affecting which neighborhoods are seeing housing activity. The share of home sales happening within five miles of a major data center has more than doubled since 2018, climbing from less than one percent to about one and a half percent. What's important to understand is that this isn't because buyers are seeking out homes near data centers. Instead, the facilities themselves are being constructed at a much faster rate than before, with the number of large data centers nationwide jumping from just 49 to 347 over that same period.
Here's where it gets interesting for local communities. These new data centers aren't being built near major cities anymore. They're moving farther out into lower-density areas and smaller communities, often landing in places that are less affluent than where facilities were opening a few years back. The median facility opening in 2026 is about 34 miles from the nearest major city center, and the communities hosting these newer facilities tend to have incomes running several percentage points below the national average.
The good news from the research so far is that home values in neighborhoods where data centers have opened aren't being pushed dramatically higher or lower compared to similar areas without them. When Realtor.com looked at 43 ZIP codes that got a large data center between 2019 and 2025, they found that property values tracked pretty closely with matched communities over the following two years. There was a modest bump in listing prices right around the opening, but that faded within about two years.
However, the researchers are cautious about what comes next. The newest generation of data centers being built are substantially larger and more power-intensive than earlier ones, requiring about two and a half times more electricity than facilities from a decade ago. Realtor.com notes that these bigger, more remote facilities are landing in communities with less experience managing an industrial neighbor, and the infrastructure demands for water and electricity could create challenges, particularly in areas already dealing with resource constraints.
What I am seeing locally in the Bay Area and East Bay is that we're fortunate our region has a long history with large industrial and technology infrastructure, which means our communities have experience managing these kinds of facilities. That said, as data center development spreads into less experienced markets across the country, we should be paying attention to how housing markets adapt and what lessons get learned, because some of those dynamics could eventually influence our own real estate patterns and property values down the road.
