Houses near data centres could drop in value by $35,000, with four in five people refusing to buy nearby without a price discount, according to new data.
It used to be that buyers expected discounts for homes near noisy motorways or far from town but now it’s looking like data centres will be the newest property drawback that may impact values.
New research from Airteam, conducted by Primara Research, found that in a sample of 1,000 Australians across the country, 83 per cent would need an average discount of $35,163 to consider buying a property near a data centre.
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Construction is underway for an AI data centre on the Sunshine Coast.
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Primara head of research Peter Drenan said the “overwhelming majority” of people required a discounts over $30,000.
“The dollar figures are significant, but the more consequential finding is the scale of resistance across the buyer pool,” Mr Drennan said.
“You’re dealing with a fundamentally compressed buyer pool, and that is what moves property prices,” he said.
The Australian Data Centre Forecast Report indicated that there were 162 data centres in Australia, with the majority in NSW and a further 90 in the national pipeline as of March 2026.
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A data centre in Melbourne suburb West Footscray.
A six building, four-storey data centre is proposed for Sydney that would be the largest in the world and Australia’s largest single energy user, according to The Climate Council.
Reporting in the US indicates residents near data centres frequently complain of noise, drops in water pressure, polluted water and concerns about increasing power bills.
The Primara research suggested Australians might have similar concerns about the power and water usage of data centres.
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Australia already has a lot of data centres.
“As the AI boom accelerates and data centres are built across Australia, the technology sector doesn’t get to exist independently of the communities around it,” said Rich Atkinson, Executive Director of Airteam.
English (US) · 