Tiny Louisiana town sees housing prices skyrocket because of Mark Zuckerberg

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

Prices for certain homes in a tiny part of northern Louisiana have more than doubled thanks to construction beginning on a massive Meta data center, a project that is set to create thousands of jobs.
The massive facility, comparable in size to 70 football fields, will sit on more than 2200 acres of what used to be farmland near Holly Ridge in Richland Parish.
Meta and its team of general contractors said the herculean undertaking will require 5,000 construction workers.
Even with all that manpower, the data center isn't expected to be up and running until 2030. Once operational, Meta believes about 500 employees will be needed to maintain it.
Ever since the four-million-square-foot center was announced in December 2024, the value of homes near the construction site have increased by record amounts.
A 5,000 square-foot mansion on an 816-acre lot 'just 20 minutes' from the data center is on the market for $16.3 million.
In November 2024, the listed price was $7.5 million, less than half of what it is eight months later.
This same phenomenon has been observed with more modest homes in the area, such as a $775,000 property for sale in Oak Ridge. That home, also about 20 minutes from the data center, was going for just $463,000 in December.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Louisiana data center will be key in training current and future AI models
Data centers contain hundreds or even thousands of servers that power basic functions of the internet, which make them crucial facets of American infrastructure.
In the case of Meta's 28 data centers across the globe, they have server space to process and store the billions of messages, posts and images circulated on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp every single second of the day.
In an Instagram video, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the Louisiana data center will help make its AI model get smarter, faster and more useful.
All this hype around Meta's newest development has supercharged the Richland real estate market, an area that still has high rates of poverty.
Realtor Heather Stephenson of Brown Realty told The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate that her phone is ringing off the hook.
She said land within about a 10-mile radius of the data center is getting the most attention.
'We're getting more and more calls and more and more interest. You know, some of those that kind of sat on the market, have been on the market for a while, that are now priced good because they're $15,000 when, you know, comps are higher,' Stephenson said.
Lee Brown, the Richland Parish Tax Assessor, mentioned a piece of property along Interstate 20 that is listed for $430,000 per acre, double what is was before the Meta announcement.
Lee Brown, the Richland Parish Tax Assessor (pictured), mentioned a piece of property along Interstate 20 that is listed for $430,000 per acre, double what is was before the Meta announcement
Brown said development around the data center is booming in anticipation of the much larger foot traffic the area will experience over the coming years.
'Delhi has got a truck stop travel center, for lack of a better word coming, Holly Ridge has one. There are three hotels, and I know of six, off the top of my head, different restaurants,' he told the Advocate.
Finding a good deal on any land anywhere in the parish is near impossible, said Jimmy Williams, an realtor with Keller Williams Parishwide Partners.
However, if Meta's best laid plans come to fruition, interest in Richland could grow even more in the future.
In mid-July, Zuckerberg said the data center in Richland will eventually need 5,000 megawatts of power when it expands even further.
The initial plans suggest the center will need 2,600 megawatts, some of which will be provided by natural gas plants and a solar farm.
Ultimately, Zuckerberg believes that the data center will rival the size of Manhattan someday.