A Phoenix-area real estate group I follow lit up recently over data centers. One agent's clients fell in love with a house in East Mesa, then found out five data centers are planned nearby and started getting cold feet. The post claimed 200 data centers are coming to Arizona, and the comments split into two camps fast: agents who think this is something buyers deserve to know about, and agents who think it's not realistic to research every industrial project within five miles of a listing. Both sides have a point, and the actual numbers are worth knowing regardless of where you land.
What's actually happening
Depending on how you count, that 200 figure isn't far off. A 2026 Arizona State University study found 66 data centers completed or under construction across Central Arizona when counting large-scale campuses specifically. Sites that track every colocation and cloud facility, like datacentermap.com, count over 180 in the Phoenix market alone. Either way, East Mesa genuinely is one of the biggest data center hubs in the country right now, with active or expanding campuses from Meta, Google, NTT, Apple, and several other companies. Meta's site alone is 2.5 million square feet. NTT paid $300 million for 173 acres to build a 2.2 million square foot campus, and that project has drawn real local opposition, not manufactured internet outrage.
The concerns showing up in that Facebook thread are documented, not invented. Water is the biggest one in Arizona specifically. Mesa's vice mayor has publicly called data center water use "irresponsible" during the driest 12-month stretch the state has seen in 126 years. Mesa, Avondale, and Phoenix have all passed ordinances capping industrial water use and requiring developers to buy supplemental supplies if they go over. Noise from cooling systems and backup generators near active sites is also real, documented in multiple markets, not just Arizona.
Is it an agent's job to bring this up?
Arizona disclosure law requires sellers to disclose known material facts affecting a property's value, but there's no specific line item for "data center nearby." That's a judgment call, not a checklist. Agents who say "you should know your area" have a point. Agents who say "I can't be expected to track every industrial project within five miles" also have a point. I don't think there's a clean answer here, and I'd be skeptical of anyone who tells you there is.
Is it actually bad for home values?
This is the part that gets skipped over fast, because outrage travels better than nuance. Arizona data centers generated $863 million in state and local tax revenue and supported over 81,000 jobs in 2023. That money goes toward schools, roads, and public safety. Infrastructure built for data centers, power upgrades, road improvements, water systems, tends to benefit everyone nearby, not just the tech company. Homes within 5 to 15 miles of major data center campuses in the Phoenix East Valley have actually shown an 8 to 18% price premium over comparable areas since 2022. That's likely correlation more than causation, data centers tend to land in places that already have good infrastructure and jobs, but it complicates the simple "data centers hurt home values" story.
What the research does show consistently is that proximity is what actually matters, not just being in the same metro area. Homes right next to a construction site or a new substation can take longer to sell. A few blocks away, the effect mostly disappears.
What this means if you're house hunting
If you're looking in East Mesa or anywhere near a proposed site, ask specifically what's planned within a mile, not just whether data centers exist in the area generally. Don't assume the answer is automatically bad news, the tax base and infrastructure investment are real too. If you want to check what's actually near a specific address, datacentermap.com/usa/arizona/phoenix tracks known facilities across the Valley. It won't catch every proposed project before it goes public, but it's a real starting point instead of guessing from a Facebook comment.
