by Chris Lisinski, CommonWealth Beacon
March 12, 2026

REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY LEADERS have already warned in dire terms that imposing rent control across Massachusetts would bring housing construction to a halt and make it harder for landlords to invest in property repairs.

Now, as they ramp up their sure-to-be-scorching campaign against a ballot question that would enshrine rent control in state law, they’ve got a new line of attack: the impact on municipal budgets.

A new report released Thursday by the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, which is leading the anti-rent control fight, and the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University warned that the tight cap on annual rent increases headed toward voters could trigger a “fiscal tsunami,” first shrinking residential property values and then, in turn, erasing a sizable chunk of local tax revenue.

Over the course of a decade, the center’s projections found, the proposed cap on rent would erase $300 billion from home and property values by limiting the earning potential of owners. That would in turn reduce what cities and towns collect from property taxes, forcing decisions about slashing public services or hiking rates in what Evan Horowitz, the executive director of the Tufts research center, called a “cascade of effects.”

“This question is so poorly drafted and has so many issues, it’ll impact not only people and homeowners, but it’s really going to impact cities and towns in ways that I’m not sure that people fully understand,” added Greg Vasil, the CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.

The ballot measure would cap most rent increases at either the annual rate of inflation or 5 percent, whichever is lower. It would exempt owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units and housing built within the past 10 years.

Unlike the rent control system that had been in place until voters banned it in 1994 or ideas for a revival floated since then, which would have given communities the option to adopt rent control, the question would impose limits on rents in all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns.

Horowitz said about 70 percent of Massachusetts rental properties would be subject to the new limits.

Urban communities with a higher share of renters would be most impacted, but Horowitz stressed that the impacts would reach into every corner. Even owner-occupied, single-family homes are “potential” rental properties whose earning potential could be limited, the report said.

“There’s no town that’s insulated,” Horowitz said. “Just because you mostly have single-family homes in your leafy, rural area doesn’t mean this isn’t going to affect your property values.”

Horowitz said he built the analysis based on a pair of studies, one that explored the impacts of the tight cap on rent increases in St. Paul, Minnesota, and another that examined price and investment fluctuations in Cambridge – one of three communities that had limits on rents -- after rent control ended in Massachusetts.

Supporters of the question contend that limiting rent increases is an urgent necessity for millions of financially constrained residents, warning that allowing landlords to hike prices at will displaces the most vulnerable tenants.

“We felt we needed to pursue every tool in the toolbox to make sure our folks do not have exorbitant rent increases,” Carolyn Chou, executive director of the Homes for All group leading the campaign, said last year.

Early polling suggests there’s a sizable appetite for capping rents. A University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll published last month found 56 percent of likely voters strongly or somewhat support limiting rent increases as the question proposes, compared to 26 percent who strongly or somewhat oppose the idea.

The real estate industry is poised to mount an all-out offensive over the coming months. Landlords already challenged the question’s eligibility before the Supreme Judicial Court, a common strategy for ballot question opponents desperate to defeat a measure any way possible.

Opponents might be inclined to ask Beacon Hill to get involved, perhaps by brokering an agreement to pass a scaled-back rent control measure if supporters agree to drop their campaign. Ballot question backers have expressed openness to the idea.

Vasil, however, said he and his allies are “not having any conversations with lawmakers on this issue” so far, and instead hope that public opinion will turn as the potential impacts become clearer.

“The difficult situation is because this was proposed as a ballot question,” he said, “we’re stuck with it.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.