As AI usage ramps up, more data centers are being built across the U.S., oftentimes outbidding home builders for land. A recent article from the National Association of Home Builders looks at recent land purchases from data center companies in Virginia as an example of what is occurring across the U.S.

In November 2025, two of Northern Virginia’s biggest land deals closed within days of each other, both of which were for data centers. Amazon paid $700 million for approximately 189 acres in Prince William County, Va., and SDC Capital Partners paid $615 million for 97 acres in Loudoun County, Va. With these prices, data center companies are outbidding home builders by wide margins. For comparison, median land prices are about $125,000 per acre in Loudoun County and $93,750 per acre in Prince William County, according to NAHB.

While data centers can bid at much higher rates than median land prices, home builders have to cap their budgets based on what homebuyers in their local markets can realistically afford. A 2026 price analysis from NAHB shows that 65% of U.S. households could not afford a median-priced new home of $413,595 at a 6% mortgage rate, and that every $1,000 increase in the price of a new home would price out another 156,405 households.

This problem is not limited to Virginia. In Illinois, Stream Data Centers bought and razed 55 homes in Elk Grove Village to make way for a three-building data center campus of about 2 million sq. ft. In Texas, data center demand is pushing up land prices in growth corridors near Dallas. HousingWire reported that land along U.S. Route 67 that had sold for $20,000 to $40,000 per acre a few years ago was selling for more than $350,000 per acre in some locations by 2026. One local residential land developer put it plainly: “There’s no possible way you can make those numbers work.” In North Las Vegas, VanTrust Real Estate sold nearly 205 acres in Apex Industrial Park to Novva Data Centers for $181 million in 2025, or more than $880,000 per acre.

The squeeze is most acute in Northern Virginia, where the housing market was already failing to keep up. The Virginia Association of Realtors told the Virginia Housing Commission in 2025 that Virginia had an estimated shortage of about 188,000 market-rate homes. The Northern Virginia Association of Realtors reported that the median price of a Northern Virginia home reached $750,000 in 2025, up about 54% over the past decade, and that the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the region had risen to 40. Every acre that moves into the data center pipeline makes those numbers worse.