A real estate gold rush is coming to a town near you—only this time there won’t be shiny nuggets glinting in the sunlight amongst the sound of picks and shovels, but silicon chips surrounded by the whir of sophisticated HVAC systems, keeping racks of hard drives cool.
“The largest infrastructure buildout in human history,” is how Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described it at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, recently. Huang’s company provides the chips and supercomputers responsible for the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, which have been in unprecedented demand by every major tech company that is spending trillions of dollars developing data centers across the U.S. In the process, they are bringing an arsenal of jobs and tertiary businesses to the country, with vast amounts of housing a natural by-product.
Construction Jobs Are in Unprecedented High Demand
Aside from the tech- and energy-related jobs that data center construction will bring, Huang stated that traditional blue-collar jobs will also offer six-figure salaries. “It’s wonderful that the jobs are related to tradecraft, and we’re going to have plumbers and electricians and construction and steelworkers,” he said at Davos in a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, as reported by Fortune.
Global management consulting firm McKinsey estimated in a report that, in the U.S. alone, there will be a need for an additional 130,000 trained electricians, as well as 240,000 construction laborers and 150,000 construction supervisors. “Everybody should be able to make a great living,” Huang said. “You don’t need to have a Ph.D. in computer science to do so.”
A recent ConstructionConnect report gives some idea of the scale of the need for construction workers in data center hubs such as Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ohio. Spending reached about $53.7 billion year to date through November 2025, a 138.6% jump over 2024.
How the Vast Expenditure Trickles Down to Small Landlords
A McKinsey report suggests that U.S. data center demand could triple by 2030, requiring a $7 trillion investment to keep up.
A recent pact between OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle saw the three companies pledge to commit $500 billion in AI infrastructure through 2029 through the Stargate Project, The New York Times reported, with Meta and Alphabet doing likewise. For smaller investors, knowing that that kind of commitment is in place for years to come means local real estate markets are unlikely to experience any boom-and-bust cycle. Instead, a boom-and-boom scenario means relocating capital to data center area markets is likely to be a prudent move.
Jobs, Wages, and Local Housing Demand
The immediate demand for construction workers means there is also an immediate need for housing.
“The same electricians, welders, heavy equipment operators, and HVAC specialists who once built office towers or shopping centers are now being pulled into data center projects at record speed,” Skillit CEO Fraser Patterson told Realtor.com. He added that in Dallas, electricians working on data center projects are earning 30% more than the going rate for a similar role.
High wages and labor demand are supporting local communities, driving the need for workforce housing, which means that mom-and-pop landlords in the right submarkets could enjoy a deluge of qualified tenants, stronger occupancy, and room for wage gains.
Rural States Could See Their Economies Change
Rural states with minimum infrastructure and housing could see a dramatic shift in their economy when data centers come to town. For example, Wyoming is on track to become a major AI hub after Laramie County approved plans for a 1.8-gigawatt data center campus that could expand to 10 gigawatts, making it the largest AI campus in the country.
To take advantage, real estate investors have a few different angles they can pursue, including:
A Best-Case Scenario
Amazon’s extensive data center buildout in the unassuming small city of Umatilla in northeast Oregon has transformed the community of 80,000, Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC reports. The daughter of Mexican-born farmhands, Yesenia Leon-Tejeda traded her job working at an Amazon fulfillment center for a Realtor’s license, closing 35 deals in one year, buying her own house, and purchasing Airbnb investments to cater to the housing demand.
Umatilla city manager Dave Stockdale said the government’s annual budget surged from about $7 million in 2011 to $144 million in the past fiscal year.
Final Thoughts: Practical Strategies for Providing Data Center-Related Housing
Big tech has the immediate area around data centers sewn up, but it’s not in the housing business—at least not yet. That means infrastructure-adjacent markets that house commuting workers will be in demand. The data centers themselves consume vast amounts of energy and water, which is not conducive to building housing. Until this issue is resolved, investing here seems impractical.
Demand for housing will be most acute in areas with land availability, established infrastructure, within a commutable distance, and that have an existing affordable housing stock. These are most likely to be in infrastructure-adjacent economies.
Here are some practical pointers on how to take advantage of the data center boom from a residential landlord’s perspective.
Focus on proven and emerging data center corridors.
Prioritize metros and counties that have already approved large ground-up projects, such as Northern Virginia, Central Ohio, and parts of Arizona, Texas, and Nebraska. Refer to Business Insider’s exhaustive mapping of over 1,200 U.S. data centers, and cross-reference it with the latest data center developments in 2026. Also, use planning and economic development websites to confirm these new facilities have been permitted rather than just announced.
Target commutable neighborhoods.
Look at neighborhoods within 10 to 45 minutes of major data centers, where construction workers and support staff are most likely to live, as described by Brookings. Also, look for neighborhoods without ongoing disputes with data centers over energy usage. Check home values to ensure they have been positively affected by data centers, but not alarmingly so.
Buy where blue-collar and tech wages are rising, but housing is tight.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors trade group, the construction industry is short 439,000 workers, driving wages to spike, particularly for skilled labor.
Focus on specialized, durable workforce rentals that appeal to tradespeople, not those with luxury finishes.
Coordinate with workforcehousing specialists, such as Nearsite, to ensure your rentals are booked months in advance. Also, rentals at modest price points have a better chance of finding future tenants once construction on data centers is complete.
Brookings notes that some companies are deploying mobile homes to appeal to construction workers, underlying the need for functional housing.
Look for areas of interconnectivity.
Ashburn, Virginia, is home to more than 150 data centers, according to Databank. Why? It has many fiber networks and critical submarine cables on the Virginia coast, and is close to Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Look where employer and project concentrations are high to reduce vacancy risk.
Also, try to factor in other business activity in the area, so that when data center construction is complete, there will still be demand for jobs.
Avoid areas where electricity rates and land prices have spiked.
Bloomberg reports that in many areas, such as Hillsboro, Oregon, utility costs have increased dramatically. The Lincoln Institute warns that competition for land can drive gentrification, displacing long-time residents and making it hard for new residents to afford to live there.
