the reality

of rent control

Rent control failed in Massachusetts and was outlawed over 30 years ago.

  • Wealthy, well-connected renters are the only ones who benefit from rent control.

Rent control fails to address our housing crisis in Massachusetts.

  • We need more housing and rent control has never built one unit of housing. Not one.

Rent control fails to reduce costs.

  • The most expensive cities in the world have some form of rent control. Why would we make Massachusetts more expensive?

Our housing crisis needs

bold solutions not failed policies.

get the facts

Proposing to lower rents through new rent control policies makes for great headlines.

But scratch just below the surface and we see that rent control has proven to intensify a deeply segregated history in Massachusetts; it redirects state resources away from municipalities that need them in favor of wealthy municipalities that do not; and does absolutely nothing to address the critical need to build more homes so residents may have more reasonably priced housing.

Proponents of rent control claim tenants just need to lower their costs, while characterizing the opposition as merely self-interested property owners - making it easy to presume that rent control has no downsides.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Rent control is a failed policy with significant, cascading effects that negatively impact those who need access to housing the most.

Low-income tenants, people of color, and middle-income families seeking housing will suffer under rent control policies.

In fact, housing providers - always portrayed as the villain in any rent control policy argument - are the smallest portion of the population that will experience significant economic pain if rent control comes back.

Rent control leaves behind those who need it most

  • There are no income restrictions with rent control — the wealthy and well-connected will always be first in line

  • Once the wealthy are in, they never leave. Rent-controlled units are held for decades, pushing out those who need it most

  • If you’re struggling to make ends meet, rent control will not help you

  • The ugly legacy of rent control Massachusetts is one that favored the well-connected, young, white, college-educated residents who did not need the benefit of scarce government resources. Those who did need those resources were left out.

    There are no regulations for who is allowed to live in rent-controlled properties.

     Unlike Section 8 Housing Vouchers, which are restricted to low-income individuals and families, rent control allows anyone, at any income level, to live in a rent-controlled unit.

    This creates better opportunities for wealthy or well-connected individuals to benefit from lower rents. A 2007 study found that only 26% of rent-controlled apartments in the City of Cambridge were occupied by renters in the bottom quartile of the household income distribution, while the top half of earners occupied about 30% of rent-controlled units.

    In addition, rent-controlled units are occupied by the same tenant for an average of 20 years compared to the average of 2 years of non-rent-controlled units. That means most rent-controlled properties are effectively taken off the market for two decades.

     Rent control would leave out nearly every low-income family struggling to find an affordable place to live and lock in a status quo where high earners are the only ones benefiting from our current housing crisis.

Rent control does not build housing

  • Rent control does not build housing. That’s worth repeating. Rent control does not build housing.

    Nowhere in the rent control proposals will you see a way to build homes for families of any income level. This is why rent control fundamentally fails to address our housing crisis.

    Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey recently released a study that says the Commonwealth must create 220,000 new units of housing by 2035 just to keep up with demand and make homes more affordable.

    Massachusetts communities must build more homes and apartments in more neighborhoods to increase affordability and help break the cycle of our residents working hard, just to end up living paycheck to paycheck.

    Rent control is just another excuse, in a long line of excuses, to stop housing from being built.

    There are innumerable options to create more homes – reducing zoning restrictions, increasing density and multi-family housing opportunities, eliminating minimum parking requirements, to name a few – and our communities should do everything they can to build more housing instead of searching for thin justifications to prevent them.

  • Massachusetts needs 220,000 more housing units just to meet demand and control housing costs

  • Rent control does not build housing. At all.

  • We don’t need a policy that fails to meet our needs

Rent control accelerates gentrification

  • A 2019 Stanford analysis found that rent control accelerates gentrification by encouraging landlords to convert rental housing to high-end condominiums or cooperatives.

     Those lucky few low-income households that can find a rent-controlled apartment may avoid immediate displacement, but they witness the cost of living in their area skyrocket – welcoming more gentrification into their communities.

    While they may be able to afford their rent, there’s nothing stopping the cost of groceries, gas, and other necessities from rising because their new wealthy neighbors are buying up the luxury apartments being built around them. This is gentrification, by definition.

    And again, without a way to prove that these rent-controlled properties are going to those who need them the most, there is no way to prevent limited rent-controlled apartments from going to wealthy individuals anyway.

     After implementing rent control, the City of San Francisco found that existing rental properties were deliberately converted to luxury condominium housing and new, high end construction rentals. Rent control led to housing stock that only served higher income individuals and San Francisco is now one of the most expensive cities in the world as a result.

    Since many properties are owned by small family businesses, retirees, or middle-class families building a nest egg, losing a portion of their income on rent controlled property would be a significant loss. And like anyone looking to make ends meet, they would find ways to cut those losses. They often convert units to luxury condominiums or list properties on Airbnb, further limiting the housing supply.

    As a result, housing becomes even more limited. Because the supply is low and the demand for housing still remains high, the cost of rent will naturally increase in response.

    We’ve experienced this low-supply, high-cost phenomenon for years now in Massachusetts and rent control will only exacerbate the move toward more expensive, luxury housing much like San Francisco.

  • San Francisco found that rent control increased luxury condominiums and took affordable units off the market

  • This serves to further gentrify communities and create more housing for wealthy people

Rent control makes housing quality worse

  • When rent control is in place, small property owners struggle to break even on rent-controlled units. The domino effect on rising housing costs naturally occurs when landlords find ways around rent control regulations so they can break even.

    Rent control limits the ability of small property owners to perform routine maintenance or to complete any major renovations, because they would be unable to afford to make the necessary investments. Even the specter of rent control creates an obvious disincentive for housing providers. Knowing that they could be targeted for rent control, their property becomes a liability for them.

    Unsurprisingly, this creates low-quality and poorly-maintained housing that studies have repeatedly shown negatively impacted the quality of life in the City of Cambridge during the era of rent control.

     For anyone who grew up in Massachusetts during this time, it’s clear that our cities are much better off without the blight and disrepair that rent control kept in place.

    Again, most small property owners are retirees, family-owned businesses, or middle-class families that are creating homes by investing their own sweat equity. These family businesses can’t absorb the significant losses to their income that rent control will bring.

    Instead, many of them will choose to sell to developers that build luxury homes, thereby increasing the housing supply for high earners while still limiting the supply for low-income individuals.

  • Rent control failed in Massachusetts because the quality of life suffered for residents

  • Studies repeatedly show that housing providers are unable to afford keep up with maintenance under the heavy burden of rent control

Rent control is paid for by the rest of the state

  • Rent control suppresses property values and allows wealthy communities – like the City of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville where rent control is being considered – to take state aid away from cities and towns that desperately need it.

    Under rent control, wealthy cities like Cambridge would be allowed to artificially depress home values, lower its own tax receipts, and thereby increase its reliance on state aid. This would siphon off resources available to the rest of the state, reallocate them to an extremely wealthy community, and create yet another layer of inequality among Massachusetts’ municipalities and its residents.       

    Rent control can never exist in a vacuum. When a wealthy city only wants to help its own residents by reducing their rents, it’s the rest of the state that pays for them to do so.

  • Resources for smaller cities and towns would go to wealthy communities instead of staying where they are most needed

Rent control does nothing to solve our housing crisis

  • Rent control is a failed policy that is painfully inadequate to the task of solving our housing crisis in Massachusetts.

    Many tenants, through no fault of their own, are struggling with rising rents, poor conditions, and irresponsible landlords. There are bad actors in our real estate market and we must find the resources to enforce fairness and penalize those landlords who cause hardship.

     Fairness must be our first principle. For too long, Massachusetts has allowed the benefits of housing to flow to those who can afford it the most. Tenant protections and assistance should go directly to the neediest among us first. There is no room in our housing policies for allowing those of means to skip to the front of the line and obtain relief ahead of others.

     Local rent control initiatives favor the wealthy, speed up gentrification, and decrease property values, which in turn decrease city revenue through property taxes. This increases state aid to those wealthy cities that want rent control, but do not need these scarce resources. It also creates a stark division between high-end and affordable housing and incentivizes building luxury condos instead of the low-income and workforce homes we desperately need.

     Rent control simply isn’t the answer to the most complex housing crisis we’ve faced in a generation.

  • Why would we make Massachusetts more expensive and reduce our quality of life?

  • Rent control only serves the wealthy and ignores the struggles of our residents

so what are the solutions?

The Massachusetts Housing Coalition advocates for more housing in every corner of the Commonwealth and aims to finally stop the endless excuses that are used to eliminate or stall badly needed housing. 

We recognize that the housing crisis in Massachusetts has been caused by exorbitant home prices from a status quo built and rewarded by a Not-In-My-Backyard mentality. The failed housing policies of the past have been used to justify far fewer homes for the families of today.

our mission

Fight to stop outdated zoning practices and remove housing barriers that exacerbate unaffordable housing conditions.

Fight to address housing instability and income inequality to create better opportunities for all residents.

Fight to create more affordable homes by mandating more housing opportunities throughout Massachusetts. 

We must make Massachusetts more affordable to live, work, and raise a family.