QUESTIONS
Do data centers lower nearby property values?
There is very little research, it does not show a large drop, and the one detailed U.S. study found the opposite — but it covered a single region.
THE SHORT ANSWER
The evidence is thin, and what exists does not show homes near data centers losing value. Researchers at George Mason University analysed 2023 home sales in Northern Virginia and found that the farther a house was from a data center, the lower the sale price — the opposite of what many people expect. Other work has found little measurable effect either way. Nobody has shown a large drop.
Why that finding is weaker than it sounds
The researchers themselves offered the likely explanation, and it is not that data centers are good for a neighbourhood: data centers get built where the roads, power and fibre already are, near jobs and airports, and those same things attract buyers. A correlation like that says more about where data centers are put than about what they do to a house next door.
The study also covered one region — the part of Northern Virginia that has had data centers for twenty years, where a buyer expects them. That is close to the least representative place in the country. What it does not tell you is what happens when the first one arrives somewhere it has never been.
The complaint that is documented
Noise is a different matter, and it is better established than the price question. Virginia's legislature found that data centers emit low-frequency noise that is rarely loud enough to violate a noise ordinance, but that some nearby residents report affects their well-being, and that about a third of data centers are already near residential areas. A sound that never breaks the legal limit and never stops is a real problem that a decibel limit is poorly designed to catch.
What we will not tell you
We do not know what a specific data center will do to the value of a specific house, and neither does anyone else. Anyone who gives you a percentage for your street is guessing. What we can do is show you what has actually been filed near you, early enough to be worth knowing.
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
- Study: Home Prices Are Higher When the House Is Near a Data CenterCenter for Regional Analysis, George Mason University · November 10, 2025
- Data Centers in Virginia (Report 598)Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, Virginia General Assembly · December 9, 2024Virginia's legislature investigating its own largest data center market, at the legislature's request.
Find out what is planned near you.
General answers only go so far. The useful version of this question is about one parcel, one county and one meeting date.
OTHER QUESTIONS
- How much water does a data center use?Anywhere from less than a house to more than a large office building, depending entirely on how it is cooled — and the cooling method is written in the application.
- Do data centers raise your electric bill?The honest answer is that it depends on where you live and what has to be built — and the best recent evidence points in two different directions.
- How close to homes can a data center be built?There is no national rule. Your county or town decides, the distances vary from none to several hundred feet, and the rules are being rewritten right now.
- What happens at a rezoning hearing for a data center?A planning commission recommends, elected officials vote, and the public gets a few minutes each — usually after the decision has been shaped in documents most people never read.