By Jared Mitovich | The Wall Street Journal | February 16, 2026
A fight is heating up in Massachusetts over what could become one of the nation’s strictest rent-control measures.
A group of housing advocates and labor unions want to stop landlords from raising rents by more than the state’s annual rate of inflation—but no higher than 5%—a year. They amassed enough signatures late last year to qualify their proposal for this November’s ballot, launching New England’s most populous state headlong into the debate over whether policing rent helps tenants.
The ballot measure has garnered early polling support in a state with some of the nation’s priciest real estate. The average two-bedroom apartment in Massachusetts goes for about $2,560 a month, 74% above the national average, according to Zillow. In Boston, where such units fetch about $3,370, Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, is supporting the measure.
Opposition is mounting, too. Gov. Maura Healey—also a Democrat—has said she would vote against the measure on concerns that rent control stifles housing production. A campaign organized by developers, landlords and business groups has pledged to spend millions trying to defeat it, and is also backing a legal challenge.
The Massachusetts law, if adopted, would be especially strict as it doesn’t allow for rent increases above inflation. Rent controls in places such as Oregon, California and Maryland’s biggest county set limits at the rate of inflation plus an additional amount, or set a higher maximum, said Evan Horowitz, executive director of the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University.
Economists have long argued rent control can slow investment and worsen housing-supply shortages. The hazards are on display in Minnesota’s Twin Cities: permits for multifamily construction plummeted in St. Paul after it enacted a strict rent-control law in 2022, which it is now loosening. Nearby Minneapolis, without rent control, saw a rise in permits.