How Are Data Centers Changing Atlanta Real Estate?
Atlanta went from seventh to second in the national data center market in about two years. It is showing up in power bills, in county commission meetings, and in the land builders can no longer afford to buy.
Justin Landis on where metro Atlanta’s data centers are going — and which neighborhoods are actually feeling it.
If your power bill feels higher than it used to, you are not imagining it. And if you have noticed data centers in the headlines more often this year, those two things are connected — though not as simply as either side of the argument would like.
Here is the short version. Metro Atlanta is now the second-largest data center market in North America, behind only Northern Virginia. A few years ago it was sixth or seventh. That happened faster than almost anyone expected, and it is now changing where it makes sense to buy across the metro. After more than 20 years working this market, Justin Landis breaks down where these projects are actually going, which areas are feeling it most, and the two things worth checking before you write an offer anywhere near one.
How Atlanta Became the No. 2 Data Center Market
The ranking comes from CBRE’s data center research covering the second half of 2025. Atlanta closed the year with 1,459.2 megawatts of total inventory — up 458.8 megawatts in a single year — plus 2,076 megawatts under construction, which is more than the market currently has built. Vacancy is around 2 percent.
No. 2
Metro Atlanta’s rank among North American data center markets, up from seventh (CBRE, year-end 2025)
2,076 MW
Under construction in metro Atlanta at the end of 2025 — more than is currently built
9,985 MW
New power generation approved by Georgia regulators in December 2025
The names behind it are the ones you would expect. Microsoft is investing roughly $1.8 billion in metro Atlanta, including a 324-megawatt, three-building campus in Union City, southwest of the city. Amazon announced $11 billion across Georgia in January 2025. Google confirmed an $8 billion Georgia investment in April 2026. Switch is building a second Georgia campus in Cartersville.
Why here? Four things lined up at once.
The Power Bill Question — and the Honest Answer
This is where most homeowners feel it first, and it deserves a careful answer rather than a satisfying one.
Fox 5 Atlanta reported in August 2025 that regulators had approved six Georgia Power rate increases over the prior two years, and that a typical residential customer was paying about $43 a month — roughly $516 a year — more than two years earlier. Since then, regulators approved a modest reduction — roughly $4 a month for a typical customer — that took effect in June 2026. So the trend has flattened, but the step up from a few years ago is real and it is still in your bill.
The contested part is who should be paying for it. During fuel-cost hearings in May 2026, Public Service Commission staff documented that large industrial customers raise average fuel costs for everyone on the system, and Commissioner Peter Hubbard said plainly that he was trying to determine whether those costs are being borne by the customers causing them. Georgia Power’s position is that its newer large-load rate structure is designed so data centers cover the costs they create.
That question is genuinely unresolved. The Commission approved the fuel settlement on May 28, 2026 over two dissenting votes, and agreed to open a separate investigation into how fuel costs get allocated between industrial and residential customers. Anyone telling you the answer today is telling you their opinion.
Two things are settled enough to plan around. Georgia regulators froze Georgia Power’s base rates through the end of 2028 — but fuel costs and storm recovery are handled separately and can still be passed through. And in December 2025 the Commission approved 9,985 megawatts of new generation, which Georgia Power projects will go roughly 80 percent to data centers. DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry has warned that if growth continues unchecked, residential bills could climb another $20 a month on average — his projection, not a utility forecast, and one worth watching rather than banking on.
“Ask for 12 months of utility bills before you make an offer. The monthly cost and the trend is just as important as the home size.”— Justin Landis, CEO & Realtor, The Justin Landis Group
That is the practical move, and it costs you nothing. A well-insulated house with a newer HVAC system and real tree cover handles rising energy costs very differently than a drafty one — and the seller already has the bills.
Where the Zoning Fights Are Happening
Walk into a county commission meeting in DeKalb right now and you will find a packed room and a long line at the microphone. That pressure has produced real policy.
South DeKalb and Ellenwood
DeKalb County has had a moratorium on new data center permits since July 2025 and has extended it twice, most recently through September 30, 2026, while it writes new regulations.
The flashpoint is a proposed campus in Ellenwood: roughly 95.6 acres on Loveless Place near the DeKalb–Clayton line, with an application describing about one million square feet across three buildings plus an outdoor substation, inside an overlay district that is predominantly single-family. County planning staff recommended denial, and the case has been deferred more than once.
Southwest Atlanta and the West End MARTA site
A proposed $500 million Digital Realty facility roughly 250 feet from the West End MARTA station has drawn organized opposition from Pittsburgh, Mechanicsville, Adair Park, Summerhill, and Peoplestown. The neighborhood position is straightforward: land that close to rail should hold housing. NPU-V voted against it in April 2026, the Zoning Review Board upheld the existing restriction in July, and as of early August the ordinance was tabled at City Council without a final vote.
That restriction exists because Atlanta moved early. In September 2024 the City Council prohibited new data centers within a half mile of MARTA rail stations, along the BeltLine, and downtown. The AJC’s editorial page has since described it as a national model; council members have also introduced legislation to create exceptions, so it is a policy under active pressure rather than a settled one.
Coweta County
Outside the city limits it looks different. In Coweta County, adjacent landowners filed suit in May 2026 over a large project on land the county had designated Rural Conservation before rezoning it to Industrial in 2024. Coweta now has five proposed data centers in various stages.
Which Metro Atlanta Counties Have Hit Pause
This is the single most useful thing to know before you shop, and it changes month to month. Here is where things stood as of late August 2026.
In place since July 2025, extended twice; current extension runs through September 30, 2026 while new regulations are drafted.
Enacted in early 2026 and extended by another 180 days, running into early 2027.
A short pause approved in July 2026 was extended by 180 days on August 20, 2026 — the newest metro county to hit pause.
Both enacted pauses even as the I-20 East corridor remains one of the most active development areas in the state.
Banned data centers across all zoning districts in March 2026 — a full prohibition rather than a temporary pause.
No new data centers within a half mile of MARTA rail stations, along the BeltLine, or downtown, since September 2024.
Five proposed projects in various stages, with one under active litigation from neighboring landowners.
Where most of the metro’s built and under-construction capacity sits. A 1.25-gigawatt campus was proposed in Lovejoy, Clayton County, in July 2026 — the largest single metro Atlanta proposal to date.
Two notes on this list. First, a moratorium is a pause, not a prohibition — most of these counties are writing rules, and applications resume when the rules land. Second, and this one trips people up: Forsyth County in north metro has been moving to restrict data centers, while the City of Forsyth in Monroe County, about 70 miles south, is a different place entirely. If you see a headline about “Forsyth,” check which one.
The Part Nobody Sees: Land Supply
The power bill is the visible effect. The land competition is the one that quietly reshapes where you can afford to live.
Data center developers want land near substations, near fiber, and near major highways — which is a nearly identical description of the land residential builders want. The difference is what each can pay. When a hyperscale developer and a homebuilder bid on the same 200 acres along I-20 East, the homebuilder usually loses.
Science for Georgia counted 103 in-use and 76 planned data centers statewide as of June 2026. The planned ones alone total roughly 15 gigawatts — enough electricity, by the group’s estimate, to power about 10 million homes. Georgia has roughly 4.6 million housing units.
When builders lose those sites, new construction moves farther out. Commutes lengthen, land costs rise, and the areas that used to be the affordable option get harder to find. If you are shopping new construction in the low $300s through the mid $500s, that is the pressure to plan around.
Justin’s read: keep Gwinnett high on the list. Gwinnett led metro Atlanta in new residential permits through the first half of 2026 with more than 1,500, which means inventory and choice are still there. Cherokee is worth a look too — it is one of the counties that just hit pause on data centers, which is its own kind of signal.
Is Atlanta Actually Worse Off Than Dallas or Denver?
Reading all of this, it is easy to conclude Atlanta is becoming a harder place to buy. The comparison to other markets complicates that.
Georgia regulators moved earlier than most. Beginning in January 2025 the Public Service Commission approved minimum billing requirements and longer contract terms for new large-load customers, with modifications to the pricing structure that April — the framework intended to keep infrastructure costs with the customers driving them. Whether it is working as intended is exactly what the fuel-cost investigation will examine.
Meanwhile, Denver adopted a citywide one-year moratorium in May 2026, and in Texas, Fort Worth advanced its own temporary moratorium in July 2026. Metro Atlanta has county-by-county pauses and a city rail-corridor restriction, but no metrowide stop. That is a meaningfully different posture: a system for managing growth rather than a halt to it.
On water, be careful with the reassuring version. Atlanta draws primarily on the Chattahoochee River and Lake Lanier rather than the aquifer stress you see in Phoenix — but Lanier is drought-prone, Georgia is still party to a decades-long tri-state water dispute, and proposed metro projects have sought anywhere from one to six million gallons a day. It is a different water risk, not the absence of one.
Where You Will Feel It — and Where You Barely Will
- I-20 East: Covington, Newton County, Social Circle
- South DeKalb near Ellenwood
- Clayton County, including the Lovejoy proposal
- South Fulton and Union City
- Douglas County
- Fayette County
- Coweta County and the rural south metro
- Bartow, Butts, Rockdale, Spalding
- Buckhead and Midtown
- Virginia-Highland, Inman Park, Grant Park
- Alpharetta and Roswell
- Smyrna and most residential Marietta
- Peachtree City
- Woodstock
- Neighborhoods inside the MARTA and BeltLine restriction
The distinction that matters is direct versus indirect impact. Rezoning fights, construction traffic, and a large facility down the road are concentrated — they land in specific places and skip others entirely. Utility costs and land competition are not concentrated. Those reach across the whole metro regardless of where you live.
What to Actually Check Before You Buy
- Ask the seller for 12 months of utility bills — the trend matters as much as the number
- Pull rezoning and special-use applications within two to three miles of the address, not just the street
- Check the county planning department’s pending case list and the next few commission agendas
- Find out whether a moratorium is currently in effect in that jurisdiction, and when it expires
- Note whether the property sits near a substation, a transmission corridor, or a fiber route
- Look at the house itself: insulation, HVAC age, window quality, and tree cover all buffer rising energy costs
None of that is a reason to avoid a house. It is a reason to know what you are buying next to — which is the whole job.
“Data centers are starting to change where it makes sense to buy in Atlanta, and it can happen fast. That’s why knowing what is happening around a specific address is so essential.”— Justin Landis, CEO & Realtor, The Justin Landis Group
Most of this research is not hard, but it is tedious, and it lives in places a normal home search never touches. That is what having a team for is. One recent client, J R, put it this way after closing with JLG’s Ashton: they took care of everything and took so much off our plate, and the whole process from start to finish went seamlessly. If you want to know what is filed near a specific address before you make an offer, reach out and we will pull it.
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This post summarizes publicly reported information as of August 24, 2026 and reflects general observations discussed in the accompanying video. It is not legal, tax, utility, or investment advice, and it is not an appraisal or market analysis. Moratoriums, zoning decisions, rate cases, and project proposals change frequently; verify current status directly with the relevant county or municipal planning department, the Georgia Public Service Commission, and Georgia Power before relying on any of it. Utility figures are historical and do not predict future bills. Statements attributed to individual officials are their own. The Justin Landis Group is part of Bolst, Inc., a Certified B Corporation™ brokerage, and serves all buyers and sellers equally in accordance with federal, state, and local fair housing law. The Justin Landis Group · Bolst, Inc. · 404-860-1816. For advice specific to your situation, please contact our team directly.