Data center fears are driving some Northern Virginians to move
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A data center in Ashburn. Photo: Nathan Howard/Getty Images
The data center debate has hit full force — and Northern Virginia real estate agents say it's driving some residents out of the area.
The big picture: NoVa spent decades welcoming data centers, and it now has the world's highest concentration of them.
- Now, growing public backlash has some local governments rethinking where — and how much — the industry can grow.
- Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties have all moved to rein in growth in recent years.
Meanwhile, NoVa's data center wars have hit national headlines and social media.
- "The rest of the country didn't really pick up on it till this year," says area real estate agent Chris Colgan. "It was just local to our area, but now it's all everybody freaking talks about."
What they're saying: Data center fears are making some locals so anxious that they're "uprooting everything" to move, says NoVa real estate agent Dustin Fox.
- Take one Sterling family that moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, over concerns about "radiation" and "humming," says Fox.
- For others, it's about uncertainty over what an already changed landscape will look like in the future. "People are just kind of like, 'You know what? We want a different lifestyle now. This is not the Loudoun that we first bought into,'" says real estate agent Kim Spear.
Similarly, Colgan says he's worked with several buyers moving from out of the area who are fixated on ensuring they don't live anywhere near a potential data center site.
- One family moving from California to Culpeper checked the county's data center overlay districts before buying.
Reality check: While agents say a nearby data center can hurt a home's value, there's no clear sign the debate is hurting Northern Virginia's housing market overall.
- Home prices in Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William counties are still holding steady over the last few years.
- And despite the headlines, agents say plenty of people still want to live in NoVa.
The bottom line: "Some people are just like, 'I want to get away from this,'" says Fox. "But the next buyer, they're not concerned about that. They want to live in an area that has good jobs in a good residential neighborhood."