Opposition to AI data centers is growing, not fading — and it’s now showing up in what buyers ask agents to screen for.
More than half of U.S. residents, 53 percent, now oppose construction of an AI data center in their neighborhood, up from 47 percent a year earlier, according to a Redfin-commissioned survey conducted by Ipsos in May. Roughly a third, 34 percent, support the buildings, down from 38 percent in the November 2025 survey.
Data centers remain the least wanted development type Redfin tracks, ahead of apartment complexes, at 39 percent opposed, and mixed-use developments, at 32 percent opposed.
For agents, the shift is showing up in client conversations, not just in poll numbers.
“A buyer recently asked me, unprompted, to make sure there wasn’t a data center planned near a home she was considering,” said Matt Ferris, a Redfin Premier agent in Northern Virginia. He said another client who moved into a Prince William County community near several data centers told him a year later they probably would have chosen a different location had they known how many were nearby.
Ferris said buyer concerns center on noise, traffic, and water and electricity use, along with the way a large industrial structure can change a neighborhood’s feel.
The concern is not confined to buildings people can see from their front porch. A separate Inman analysis found data center developers are competing directly with homebuilders for vacant land in markets including Northern Virginia, pushing site costs above $8 million an acre in some cases, and pulling electrical subcontractors away from residential construction in markets like Abilene, Texas. Both dynamics can add cost and delay to nearby housing projects, effects buyers may not immediately connect to a data center down the road.
Opposition varies sharply by age. Baby boomers oppose data centers in their neighborhood at the highest rate, 65 percent, followed by 60 percent of Gen Xers. Opposition drops to 43 percent among millennials and 42 percent among Gen Zers.
Data centers are not without upside for the communities that host them. In Loudoun and Prince William counties, Virginia, tax revenue from data center equipment has coincided with rising education spending and falling residential property tax rates, according to the Redfin analysis. Ferris said that tradeoff has not shown up in client conversations. “Residents are more worried about quality of life than a little extra money in county coffers,” he said.
