No single 'data center effect' on home values, Realtors find

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(The Center Square) – There is no single "data center effect" on local housing markets, a new report from the National Association of Realtors finds, complicating the pitch that welcoming the facilities is a sure economic win.

President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 31 that communities rejecting data centers "want to end up being backwards and poor," and promised those that welcome them "far lower taxes and jobs all over the place." But the report, from a trade group whose members stand to benefit from the building boom, found the reality is more complicated.

That uncertainty runs through jobs, taxes and household utility bills.

Counties with the most data centers do have far pricier housing. The median home value was $431,750 in counties with 10 or more data centers, the report found, compared with $174,500 in counties with none. Values there also grew faster over the past decade.

But the report cautions that data centers did not cause those higher values. Counties with the most data centers were already wealthier, younger and better educated, with median household incomes near $89,000 against $64,000 in counties without them.

"There is no single data center effect," Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors chief economist, said in a statement. "The story varies significantly depending on the local market."

Jobs follow a similar pattern. Employment in the highest-concentration counties grew about 16% over the past decade, the report found, compared with 2% in counties without data centers. However, it again cautioned the facilities were not necessarily the cause. Growth has since slowed across the country, and the Realtors surveyed for the report said the jobs data centers do bring are often temporary, concentrated in construction, with limited long-term payoff.

Trump also promised "far lower taxes," but the report complicates that too. Only about a fifth of the Realtors surveyed were aware of any tax breaks tied to the data centers in their markets. And in the report's open-ended responses, some Realtors questioned how much local benefit the incentives provide; as one put it, data centers "may create high tax revenue, but provide very little jobs."

Utility costs worried real estate clients most. Energy costs and water use topped the list of concerns Realtors said they were hearing. Residential electricity rates did rise faster from 2020 to 2024 in counties with the most data centers, up 21.4% against 15.7% in counties with none. But the report cautioned the pattern was inconsistent, and because those counties started cheaper, their rates in 2024 were still slightly lower overall.

The worry extends beyond any one town. The Trump administration has answered it with a voluntary Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which the White House says includes commitments from more than 300 utilities, governors and tech firms to have data centers cover their own power costs so households do not.

By "requiring data centers to pay for their own power, water, and utilities," a White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, told The Center Square, "the president has ensured the American people never foot the bill for private companies' profits."

But Travis Fisher, an energy expert at the Cato Institute, wrote in July that the pledge "embraces the right goal" while lacking "much force behind it," since it is voluntary and rates are set by state regulators.

A Consumer Reports survey in May found 75% of Americans were not confident the companies would follow through, skepticism that spanned both parties.

In The Center Square's June poll, 45% of registered voters said there was too little government regulation of AI, against 13% who said too much. Consumer Reports found the action Americans most wanted was laws requiring companies to keep their promises.

Data centers remain highly concentrated. About 92% of U.S. counties have none, and 34 counties have 10 or more, led by Loudoun County, Virginia, with 213, about 14% of the national total. Recent growth is also occurring outside the biggest established hubs: central Ohio's Licking and Franklin counties, Santa Clara County, California, and Dallas County, Texas, each added 10 or more facilities between the two most recent datasets.

The Realtors group said it takes no position on data centers; the report was meant to inform its members, not lobby for or against the boom. Its numbers have limits, too. As Yun put it, the county-level data "can't tell us what happens to an individual home next to a facility. That's why local knowledge and credible data matter so much right now."