New York City has tens of thousands of “ghost apartments” that sit vacant because property owners cannot afford necessary renovations. Rent control mandates take units off the market and significantly worsen housing shortages. #mapoli
Seasonal communities are working hard to build more homes and bring down costs, but as Housing for Massachusetts Chair Conor Yunits explains here, rent control will threaten that progress.
Massachusetts needs to create 222,000 homes over the next decade just to meet current demand. Study after study proves rent control halts housing production. Visit https://t.co/L1KHXPxQGX to check out the research yourself. #mapoli
A study from the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts concluded that, “Almost immediately, the 2026 rent control ballot question would upend the real estate market, shrinking the residential property tax base by 6-9 percent in municipalities all across the Commonwealth.”
Dr. Jonathan Gruber has repeatedly raised the alarm about the harm rent control would cause. During a March hearing at the State House, Dr. Gruber said there is “unambiguous, solid economic evidence” that rent control would make our state’s affordability crisis worse, not better.
Over the weekend, the @nytimes Editorial Board released an OpEd in which they pointedly stated that rent control has not solved New York's housing problems, and it will not solve our state's housing challenges either. #mapoli
Southampton NY isn’t the easiest place to get to so I might as well get this started early!
Ticket giveaway for the US open!
Bonus points if you take a kid
(12 and under are free)
Merrimack Valley-based realtor and Lawrence resident Obed Núñez breaks down the harm rent control would cause to Lawrence and other Gateway Cities across Massachusetts. #mapoli
@SenWarren You are shameless. You killed the JetBlue merger in 2024 and now claim a Reagan judge and high fuel prices did them in (ergo, it must be Trump’s fault)
Massachusetts permitted just 12,056 homes in 2025, among the lowest in decades. Restrictive zoning & building codes, and archaic permitting processes have made building new housing here among the most difficult in America, pushing affordability further out of reach for too many.
Just had a spicy exchange at my front door:
-Him- Hi we're gathering signatures for rent control.
=Me= Rent control is one of the worst ideas in all of economics. Did you even google this?
- Yes, and I studied economics actually.
= You think a majority of economists think it's a good idea?
- Yes actually.
= That's not true. It lowers the supply of housing. Landlords don't have money to maintain units.
- We'll force them to.
= Cities with rent control are missing tens of thousands of units because upkeep isn't worth the money.
- You think landlords can't afford it?
= They have less money, it's just a business choice. Meanwhile, can you guess what I pay in property taxes?
- No
= Can you guess the ratio of my property taxes vs my 5 neighbors combined?
- No
= I pay literally double the next 5 houses combined.
- Are you saying you can't afford that?
= No, the city has less tax revenue for roads and schools and police. You could be trying to fix that. Have you heard of CEQA?
- No, I don't know what that is
= Please quit your job.
Michael Monahan, VP of IBEW District 2, told legislators that the proposed rent control ballot measure would shrink housing production and cause further harm to the building trades at a time when new construction is already slow. #mapoli
Methuen City Councilor and realtor Neily Soto says small property owners would be harmed by the proposed rent control ballot measure. She called on legislators to support policies that create opportunities, preserve housing, and let people invest in their futures. #mapoli
Caleb Hammer explains why rent control doesn’t work
“It’s one of those policies that sounds really good and really moral. You want to support it, landlords make less money and people pay less rent. But everywhere it’s been enacted, permitting has dropped significantly, and rents have gone up even faster for the average person, except for the few lucky ones in subsidized housing”
“Units go untouched and aren’t maintained at all. I think something like 10-20% of rent controlled units in New York are empty because they can’t be brought up to standard, since it’s not worth investing in. In Massachusetts, rent control was a complete disaster and had to be repealed. In San Francisco, the moment they introduced it, permitting dropped. It just hasn’t worked”
While the economics of rent control are pretty clear (and well laid out by Gruber here), the fiscal impacts are less frequently discussed but also very real. Driving down property values reduces the local property tax base, requiring rate increases. There's no free lunch!
Our coalition is at the State House today to speak out against a ballot measure that would impose the nation’s most restrictive and damaging rent control agenda across ALL 351 cities and towns in the Commonwealth. #mapoli