Data Centers’ Uneven Mark on U.S. Housing Markets

America’s data center boom is reshaping local housing markets—but rarely in the same way twice. A first-of-its-kind study from the National Association of Realtors finds that the sprawling computing facilities that power the AI economy can lift property values in some communities while straining housing supply and infrastructure in others, with the results depending almost entirely on where the servers land.

According to NPR, the trade group commissioned the analysis to help real estate agents answer a question they increasingly field from clients: What does a data center next door mean for my home? The answer, the research suggests, is that there is no single answer.

A Study Built on Contrast

The National Association of Realtors released its “2026 Data Center Impact Report” on September 8, combining a national, state and county-level data analysis with a survey of more than 2,300 realtors. Researchers overlaid the location and physical footprint of roughly 1,500 data centers against property values, home-sales rates and demographic data to build the picture.

One finding stands out above the rest: the industry is extraordinarily concentrated. Ninety-two percent of U.S. counties have no mapped data centers, and only about 1% have ten or more. The ten most data-center-dense counties hold roughly 42% of all facilities nationwide, and Loudoun County, Virginia, alone accounts for about 14%. Northern Virginia as a whole hosts some 319 mapped data centers—roughly 19% of the national total.

“We talk about data centers as though they are one category, and they are not,” Nadia Evangelou, NAR’s principal economist and director of real estate studies, told NPR.

Correlation Is Not Causation

On paper, the numbers for data-center-heavy counties look impressive. The median home value in counties with ten or more data centers is $431,750, compared with $174,500 in counties with none. Home values in those high-concentration counties grew 95% over the past decade, versus 64% elsewhere. Median household income and employment growth are similarly elevated.

But the report cautions strongly against reading those figures as a data center dividend. High-concentration counties were already affluent, highly educated technology hubs before the recent building surge. “There is no single data center effect,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in the release. “The number of data centers alone does not tell us what will happen to home values, jobs or utility costs.”

Evangelou put it more bluntly: Northern Virginia, Silicon Valley, Phoenix, central Ohio and Grant County, Washington, are “all very different places” with different economies and different reasons for attracting data centers. “When we look at things like home values, employment, electricity rates, we didn’t find one pattern that can explain all of them.”

The View From Abilene

If the aggregate data are ambiguous, ground-level experience can be sharper. In Abilene, Texas—home to the Stargate Project, a $500 billion AI infrastructure venture backed by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank—the arrival of the largest data center in U.S. history has coincided with a housing crunch.

Local realtor Steve Stovall told NPR that the influx of workers has bolstered the commercial economy but overwhelmed the residential market. “Buyers that are currently in the market are well aware of it because they’re having trouble finding housing,” he said. “The rentals are full. The hotels are full. Many of the rentals have become Airbnbs or short-term rentals and the prices are all just going up.” The median home price in Abilene now sits at about $342,000, up from roughly $250,000 six years ago.

Not everyone sees the project as a straightforward windfall. A Texas Observer opinion piece noted that the facility promises only 357 permanent jobs against 1,500 construction positions—and that an on-site natural gas plant has been authorized to emit 1.6 million tons of greenhouse gases and 14 tons of hazardous air pollutants annually, drawing concerns about health effects on nearby neighborhoods. Two more large data centers have already been approved on Abilene’s outskirts.

Mixed Signals on the Ground

The realtor survey reflected the same ambiguity. Thirty-eight percent of respondents reported a data center either operating or in development in their market. Of those, perceptions of residential impact were split: 25% saw a positive effect on nearby home values, 22% a negative one, and about a third were unsure.

The commercial picture was clearer. Half of respondents reported increased nearby commercial property values, and 42% saw rising demand for nearby commercial space, particularly industrial properties and land. Clients’ top concerns, meanwhile, were energy costs (61%) and water use (56%).

Independent research adds a note of caution on the jobs front. A Brookings Institution analysis of roughly 1,500 facilities found that a county receiving its first large data center sees data-processing employment rise sharply, but that the net effect amounts to only 100 to 200 jobs. Wages were unchanged, and home prices rose a modest 2% to 5%.

Why It Matters

The stakes extend well beyond individual property values. Residential electricity rates rose 21.4% from 2020 to 2024 in counties with ten or more data centers, compared with 15.7% in counties without—though NAR notes that data is measured at the state level and is not necessarily causal. Nationally, data centers’ share of peak summer power demand is projected to climb to 8.5% in 2027 from 4.1% in 2025, according to Goldman Sachs Research, which projects total U.S. data center power demand will more than double to 66 gigawatts by 2027.

That tension is already spilling into politics. Data centers have become a cross-partisan issue heading into the 2026 midterms, with conservatives raising concerns about property rights and electricity prices and environmental groups focused on water consumption and grid strain.

What to Watch

NAR has no official policy position on data centers and said it intends to publish an update within about six months. For Evangelou, the rapid pace of construction is precisely why the work must continue.

“We do not see evidence of weaker housing markets in counties with a large data center presence,” Yun said. “But these are county-level numbers, and they 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.”

As the AI buildout accelerates, the coming years will test whether communities can capture the economic upside of these facilities without absorbing more of the costs than they bargained for.