Curveballs and Big Decisions
Many of you might remember my wife and I moved out of the city of St. Paul in autumn of 2024 to a suburb on the outskirts of the Twin Cities. We then spent the following eighteen months doing painstaking and extensive renovations to the house in order to modernize it and make it our own.
Last week we learned of a massive data center being built by Meta in one of the neighboring communities about five miles away from us. This gargantuan complex will be sharing our aquifer and power stations and this has, historically, not played out well for local home owners in that regard. Municipal water typically ends up being polluted with heavy metals and microplastics and energy prices skyrocket for everyone because of increased demand. Residents around these facilities also often complain of the constant low-pitched hum of the data centers. Local regulators have every incentive to look the other way because of how much money these tech companies bring into the areas they’re built. To make matters worse we discovered this Meta facility is also just the first of many data centers slated to be built in this area.
I’ve seen these scenarios play out in the city my mother lives in—Johnstown, Ohio. Intel announced their plan to build a massive data center complex in a neighboring town about five years ago. Since then farmland and residential properties have been gobbled up and an area that was once lush, peaceful countryside looks like a dystopian nightmare.
After a bit of research I discovered one potential upside—real estate prices in areas around data centers tend to see double-digit increases in market values. These facilities usually trigger a deluge of new people moving into the area for high paying jobs the data centers create.
Therein lies the big decision part of the post.
We feel like we struck gold finding the house. We live in a small, private, community surrounded by protected wetlands, nature trails, and woods. After existing in the hellish chaos of post-pandemic Twin Cities for so long this place has been an oasis of peace and quiet for us these last, nearly, two years. However, this data center situation might be a great chance to get out of this cold, high-tax state and escape to greener (and warmer) pastures.
We will have to see how this plays out over the next few months. It’s strange how life can throw these unexpected curve balls at you when you’re least expecting it.
I'm sure many of us will be faced with similar decisions in the coming years as more of these data centers are built to power the AI that will help to shape the lives of future generations of humanity.
The true question is will we learn to coexist with these tech companies and see how it goes or, take the money and run? What would you do?
All for now. Enjoy your weekend and thanks so much for reading.
If you see any appreciation in your house value you might take an opportunity to sell your home. Renovated homes are easier to sell and they usually fetch a higher price to the point where I spent over 100k on every house I sold in the last 8 years and every time saw at least a double on that investment within a month.
If you are looking at lower priced nice warm housing market that saw significant price decline in the last few years Florida and particularly Tampa area might be a good place to look...
As much as I hate to leave this home and neighborhood I'm not particularly in love with this State or the weather here anymore. It will be awfully tempting to sell if the market value allows us to recoup what we spent on renovations plus a little more. Texas or Florida look like good options. I like the absence of State taxes. Here in MN our State taxes are almost as much as we pay at the Federal level.
Sharing your water supply and power station? I'd take the money and ruuuuuun, or at the very least find a secondary more affordable home further away and rent the current house to folks moving into the area for work.
With data centers being upgraded to 'military targets' in the recent months I'd be distancing myself as much as I could. That's just me, though.
There's always a chance the project gets shut down before it passes, though! A lot of towns have been pushing back hard against the corporations trying to build them.
Such a tough call, you just finished moving in! Which way are you leaning?
Yes, many of the cities where these are being built aren't requiring the DC's to have independent water/power so they tap into city utilities. Many are proposing DC's to have small modular nuclear reactors so they can generate their own power and closed-loop water processing on site. I think that's the only "safe" way for these to operate. I hadn't even considered the military target aspect of these but, you're right, they'll be huge targets. Unfortunately it was kept relatively quiet until after it had already been approved. I've wanted to be in a warmer climate for years now so if the market prices rises enough around here I'd probably lean towards selling. I can't see that happening for another couple of years though.
I think the possible pollution and noise generated by these data centers are major issues. It is important for local opinions to be considered in these talks.
Unfortunately they're very sneaky with how this is handled. Most communities get very little say in what is being built. Public hearings are mainly just for show so community members can blow off steam. As they say money talks and it's hard for local governments to say no to companies like Meta.
We have just started this business here some time ago of building a house and selling it tomorrow. This business is good. If we want a good investment, we make a good investment and we want to get a good profit, then we always have to use a good quality product. When everything is installed well, the price of the house will also be good and there will definitely be a good profit. When we build a house for someone, it is the earnings of that person for the rest of their life. Therefore, investors also have to think about giving a good product so that the person who built the house can live as hard as the person who has ego has worked so hard to earn money.
Very nice! I wish you well in your business!
That's a tough one since you still have family around there. I'd hope that maybe the wetlands could be a natural filter for some of the bad stuff, but who knows. What's the average radius that people see effects from the centers?
More and more of the family are getting smart and moving down to Arizona. : ) Our son is even looking at property down there so you never know! Unfortunately the pollution from DC's come, mostly, by way of the shared water treatment plants/aquifers so anyone connected to the facilities they use are effected, that can be a pretty large area.
Ah, well, if your family is looking to move that way, then that makes it a bit of a done deal! 😀
Yes! If we can get out of the house what we've put into it the tax savings of moving, alone, will be worth it.
I don't know...you put so much love into that house. And yet, sharing your living space and resources with a data center. That wasn't part of the plan.
Where I live, cell phone companies can't even get a permit to put up a cell tower anywhere near us. We have terrible cell phone reception, but people don't care. They don't want that stuff (data centers, cell phone towers) anywhere near us.
We sure have! The city and media did a very good job of keeping this project quiet until it was nearly approved. We may have reconsidered buying in this area had we known in 2024. That's a great thing to have some measure of protection against radiation and such from cell towers. I'm looking forward to the day when all of this infrastructure is off-planet. SpaceX and xAI are building satellite based data centers powered by solar and cooled by space. I think this is the way.
Oh man. Everywhere around the world, similar sh... happening. My friends complain about Tesla's factory and big project in the Berlin area, where a ton of forest had to be cleared to make room for these gigantic factories. What this does to nature and the habitat is not considered; it's all about profits. Why don't they place their stupid factories on the Moon and leave Earth once and for all? 😉
Waiting to see what happens could be wise. I get the increase in real estate prices; however, we tend to forget that these centers will require fewer and fewer people. Sure, the infrastructure will be set up and mostly maintained by humans (at least for now), and this is where investors make a ton of money with (AI infrastructure that is). Anyway, what a curveball.
It certainly is! As much of a fan of Tesla as I am I saw the environmental impact they had on the Austin area when I was down there for the shareholder meeting in November. The entire area where the gigafactory was built used to be grazing land for cattle. You still saw small ranchers near the factory, their longhorns were grazing in little plots while buildings sprung up all around them. They provide a lot of positive economic opportunities to the areas they build in but the environmental impact is very real and unfortunate. But you're right in that the economic benefits of factories and DCs will become less and less as the use of robotics ramp up. There are already factories in China that are 95% robots and operate continuously, round the clock.
Yes, I think we're going to take the wait and see approach. I'd say if we can recoup our purchase price + renovation costs + 10%-25% profit then we'd be foolish not to make the move. We were always planning on moving at some point anyway and this just speeds up the timeline.
Wise choice. And as additional information comes in, you can adjust your decision accordingly.
No way!!! Seriously, how things can change overnight. I remember that a phone company here wanted to set up a base in a residential area and had to pay a fortune. I hope that if you’re going to sell your house—which has turned out so beautifully—it’s to buy a better one in a place with a better climate. Above all, a better climate. Hugs, Eric
Thank you Nancy! Yes—talk about a curve-ball! It would be nice not to have to endure these harsh winters anymore. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, my friend!
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