The Fight Over Rent Control in Massachusetts

An upcoming ballot proposal seeks to resurrect a failed policy to address the commonwealth’s housing crisis.

Last August, a group of 10 citizens in Massachusetts filed a ballot petition that will ask voters to approve residential rent control this coming November. This is not the first time Massachusetts voters have considered this issue.

From 1970 to 1995, Boston, Brookline and Cambridge had rent control on the books. Voters repealed the law because it warped the rental market, artificially held down property values, dealt a deep financial blow to small property owners and mostly benefited the connected upper middle class. Those lessons seem lost to the proponents of this new rent control proposal.

As written, the petition represents the strictest form of statewide rent control in the United States. It would limit the annual rent increase for residential units in all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns to whichever is lower — 5% or the annual increase in the federal government’s Consumer Price Index (which has averaged just 2.57% over the past 20 years) — with limited exceptions.

The proposal does not reflect or consider increases in local property taxes, utilities, assessments, improvements or upgrades made to the unit by the owner. Baseline rents were set Jan. 31, 10 months before Election Day. There is no vacancy decontrol, meaning that any owners who have kept units below market rate for long-time tenants will never catch up. Violations leave owners exposed to the state’s consumer protection law, with significant financial penalties.

In December, the Massachusetts secretary of state announced that proponents had gathered the roughly 75,000 certified voter signatures needed to get on the ballot. But NAIOP Massachusetts is confident that it can defeat this ill-conceived proposal.

Working Across Organizations

The organization is not doing this alone. When the petition was filed, NAIOP Massachusetts joined with the Massachusetts Association of REALTORS® and the Greater Boston Real Estate Board to establish a coalition and build an expert team to fight this ballot question. Throughout the fall, NAIOP Massachusetts worked with the team to educate the press, policymakers and members of the business community on the proposal and its unprecedented restrictions. This early work ensured that the coalition would have a strong foundation for a ballot fight. 

The Data on Our Side

Housing costs are, understandably, the No. 1 priority for policymakers and the business community as they work together to ensure Massachusetts’ competitiveness, both now and in the future. The commonwealth’s first-ever comprehensive statewide housing plan identified the need for an additional 222,000 housing units over the next decade. Massachusetts is well behind the pace needed to meet that goal. This is creating an affordability crisis that has been years in the making.

Rent control will not solve the problem. Instead, based on data from across the country and from Massachusetts’ previous experience with rent control, this proposal will make the problem worse, hurting tenants, property owners, the commonwealth’s economy and its communities.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, adoption of a 3% rent cap in 2021 saw a 73% drop in new multifamily housing development. Following the 2024 enactment of rent control in Montgomery County, Maryland, only seven new units of multifamily housing were permitted in the first quarter of 2025.

Rent control also harms municipal budgets. A 2018 study of rent control in New York City calculated the loss in taxable assessed property values attributable to rent control at approximately $4 billion in the late 1980s. This means rent control hurts the fabric of a community, negatively impacting investment in schools, public safety and social programs.

What can slow rent growth in a positive manner is the production of more units. In Austin, Texas, where 10,000 new apartments have come online since 2022, rents fell 6% from 2023 to 2024. In Phoenix, where multifamily construction boomed postpandemic, rents have fallen 4% year over year. Instead of focusing on archaic policies that have already failed in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Maryland, New York and elsewhere, housing advocates and business groups should be working to ensure production can move forward. 

The Road Ahead

In December, NAIOP Massachusetts joined with its partners to create Housing for Massachusetts (HFM), a ballot committee with one goal: Defeat rent control. The next steps in the process play out concurrently.

First, the ballot question has been filed as a piece of legislation that the Massachusetts Legislature is required to consider before May 6. Historically, the Legislature takes no action, requiring proponents to gather additional signatures. The Legislature will likely prepare its own report on the proposal that will be distributed to all voters in Massachusetts in advance of the election. HFM will prepare strong, diverse, fact-based testimonies in advance of a hearing this spring that will help shape the legislative report.

Second, HFM is challenging the constitutionality of the petition with the Supreme Judicial Court, which will hear ballot question challenges in early May and render decisions in June.

Finally, HFM is in full campaign mode. It is raising funds, building out a grasstops and grassroots organization across the state, testing messages, debating its opponents, commissioning new research, briefing the press and preparing a significant advertising campaign.

As an organization, NAIOP Massachusetts’ priority is to ensure that HFM has the resources it needs to educate voters, mobilize coalition partners and fight this ballot question at every turn. The team is confident that voters will choose solutions that help alleviate the housing crisis and reject rent control as a failed policy. For more information or to lend your assistance, visit HousingforMass.com. 

Anastasia Daou is senior vice president of policy and public affairs for NAIOP Massachusetts.

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