Rent Control Advocates Have Signatures To Move Massachusetts Ballot Measure Forward
Rent control in Massachusetts is one step closer to making it on the ballot next year.
The tenant advocate group behind the proposal, Homes For All Massachusetts, announced Tuesday afternoon that it had collected more than 124,000 signatures for a statewide ballot initiative that would put new caps on rent increases.
That’s around 49,000 signatures more than are needed to qualify for the 2026 ballot.
The group now plans to submit the rent control petitions to local municipal registrars for certification by Wednesday’s deadline, and then submit the certified petitions to the Massachusetts Secretary of State's office by the state’s Dec. 3 deadline.
The initiative, called An Initiative Petition To Protect Tenants By Limiting Rent Increases, would limit rent increases across all 351 municipalities to no more than 5% per year.
There would be an exemption to the cap for owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units. The initiative also provides a carve-out that would exempt new multifamily housing for the first 10 years after construction.
In a statement, Noemi “Mimi” Ramos, executive director of New England Community Project, lauded the signature-gathering effort.
“We achieved our goals through the hard work of grassroots rent control supporters, not by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to professional signature gathering firms,” Ramos said.
In October, several major unions joined ranks with rent control advocates to support the measure, The Boston Globe reported. Unions, including the SEIU Massachusetts State Council, Massachusetts Teachers Association and Boston Teachers Union, have supported the initiative.
The potential rent control measure has caught the attention of the commercial real estate industry. The largest real estate associations in the state have argued that the measure would actually worsen the housing crisis and negatively impact small landlords.
Following the signature announcement, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, Massachusetts Association of Realtors and NAIOP Massachusetts sent out a joint statement saying they will work to educate “homeowners, community leaders, businesses, and elected officials about exactly how damaging this proposal will be.”
“The risks of this ballot question for our economy cannot be overstated. It is not an opt-in: this question creates the most restrictive rent control program in the entire United States and forces it on every city and town across the Commonwealth,” the statement reads.
The big players aren't the only ones worried about the impacts of the initiative.
Nationally, the Small Property Owners Association has also come out against the measure, saying it will negatively impact owners of small properties with five to 10 units.
“I understand the sentiment that it takes a while to build more housing, which is what will bring down rents,” SPOA Vice President Amir Shahsavari told the Globe in August. “But rent control as an emergency provision is counterproductive because it stunts the growth of new housing supply.”
This isn't the real estate industry's first fight against rent control.
In 2023, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu submitted the city's own rent stabilization plan that would limit rent increases to between 6% and 10%, with the exact cap based on the consumer price index. The plan was approved by the city council but quietly fizzled on Beacon Hill.
That year, the GBREB launched a $400K campaign against the rent control plan.
In Massachusetts, some ballot initiatives are voted on by the state legislature before those initiatives can go directly to voters. State legislators can choose to pass or reject the proposed law laid out in the petition.
If the rent control petitions are certified, Massachusetts lawmakers have until May 6, 2026, to vote on the measure.
If legislators don’t take up the measure, or reject it, rent control advocates then will have to collect an additional 12,429 signatures by July 1 to officially put it on the November 2026 ballot.
