Commercial Real Estate Opportunities For Investment
With the recent AI boom, governments and private companies are pouring money into data centers like never before. This is one of the fastest growing areas in commercial real estate. What should you know about this sector? And how can you get a piece of these booming investments?
Data centers require large amounts of land. Sometimes up to thousands of acres just for one location. Finding a large plot of land in the US isn’t that challenging, so what are the main challenges and considerations when constructing a new data center?
The main factors aside from the land itself when deciding where to build a new data center are: zoning, power, water, and fiber optic connections.
Farms and factories have been around for hundreds of years, and the zoning for these applications are much more clear than for data centers, which have just popped up within the last few decades. Many plots of land have to be rezoned to accommodate data centers, and this can be a challenge.
Once zoning is approved, the data center needs a power connection. The size of data centers are often measured by the wattage, that’s how critical power is to the operation. In many cases new power plants and infrastructure have to be built.
Water is the next important piece. The computers and machinery of a data center can generate heat as they operate, and large amounts of water are needed to cool them down and prevent over heating. A proper supply of water must be identified.
The last major piece of data center site development is a way to connect to data center to the internet. This is most often done through fiber optic cables. The US has a robust fiber optic network, but cables must be brought onto the site of the data center, and this can be a challenge in some areas.
The last major concern is environmental. Data centers need to be reliable, and environmental and weather impacts such as flooding or hurricanes need to be evaluated and factored in to the construction and operation of the site.
Many data center operators know that it is beneficial to be diversified in location so that if weather or other event impacts one data center, operations can temporarily be moved to a data center in a different location that may not be impacted.
Other factors when choosing a location include access to a workforce to operate the data center, and proximity to the end users for reduced latency.
In addition to investing with us, there are other options to get exposure to this booming real estate sector. These REITs will give you exposure to data centers. Many of the major tech companies including Google, Amazon and Facebook work with REIT owned data centers.
Equinix is a REIT that has over 10,000 customers including 310 Fortune 500 Companies such as AT&T and Google. Digital Realty Trust is a REIT with over 5000 customers among whom are Amazon, IBM, and Nvidia. Iron Mountain is a REIT that operates over 5 million square feet of data centers with clients who include CBS and the Federal Government.
Along with new data centers come its sister industry, power supply and electricity generation. Data centers require massive amounts of power to operate. As data centers continue to be constructed, so are new power plants, often nearby. Take advantage of both of these opportunities for maximum gains.
CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust, Inc., is the first publicly listed real estate investment trust focused on energy infrastructure. Also invest in traditional utility companies that are experiencing growth right now as they partner with some of the biggest tech companies to expand production. Entergy has new partnerships with Meta and Amazon. Vistra has formed new data center partnerships with Amazon and Microsoft. Another good option is American Electric Power Company or AEP.
The three main sources of electricity currently in the United States are gas, coal, and nuclear power. Many of the corporations that are building new data centers are contributing to the expansion of the current power generation infrastructure used by utilities. And some companies are also taking the opportunity to add renewable energy into their projects.
Digital data is here to stay. And although individual tech corporations may rise and fall, the data infrastructure and energy that powers them will always remain in demand. That’s why we’re considering these some of the best investments in 2025 and beyond.
Real estate touches every industry from data to power, food, retail, and more. For the best investment advice and guidance visit realestateandhomesforsale.com
Sources:
https://www.reit.com/what-reit/reit-sectors/data-center
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/25/meta-massive-data-center-louisiana-cost-jobs-energy-use.html
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