Land Grab for Data Centers Is One More Obstacle to Much-Needed Housing

[question everything]

(snip)

The rapid growth of artificial intelligence and the surge in construction of the large data centers it requires are emerging as another potential contributor to America’s housing shortage. Landowners and developers are finding that selling parcels to data-center developers can be far more profitable than any other use of the land. Local zoning can make it easier and faster to build data centers than housing.

Northern Virginia has emerged as the world’s data-center capital. It has open land, a growing power infrastructure and a dense network of fiber-optic cable laid during the dot-com boom. Loudoun County is home to a cluster of facilities known as “Data Center Alley.” The world’s largest tech companies also have followed Interstate 95 down to Prince William County.

At the same time, the region suffers from a housing shortage of more than 75,000 homes, according to the Virginia Association of Realtors. Nancy Pav, a real-estate agent in Loudoun County, said she sold 80% of her listings last year at the asking price or more, and nearly all of them sold within seven days. High prices and a dearth of affordable new inventory, she said, prices out first-time buyers.

Similar dynamics are at work in other data-center hotbeds. In 2024, Stream Data Centers purchased and then knocked down an entire 55-home subdivision in Elk Grove Village, Ill., a data-center hub near Chicago, to build three data centers totaling 2.1 million square feet. The company paid nearly $1 million per house.

Land is selling for unprecedented sums in the growing exurbs near Atlanta, where data-center companies, warehousing firms and home builders alike hunt for space near highways. In Texas, prices for land along U.S. Route 67 near Dallas, which three years ago sold for between $20,000 to $40,000 an acre, have jumped to more than $350,000 an acre in some places, said Scott Finfer, a residential land developer there. For home builders, he said, “there’s no possible way you can make those numbers work.”

More..

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/data-center-land-deals-housing-shortage-81ea6e09?st=uMWL1W&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

free

[DJ Synikus Makisimus]

1. In capitalism, the greed of the few ALWAYS outweighs the needs of the many.

Without severe regulatory rules, and restrictions/taxation on personal and generational wealth, people suffer.

If only there were a political party interested in doing something about that.