BREAKING: New study from Tufts underscores the harmful impacts of proposed rent control ballot measure

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The Rent Control Ballot question doesn’t affect just Boston, it could have a huge impact in Berkshire County as well.  Soon you will see an article Sandy Carroll wrote for the Berkshire business Journal about the local affects, but we also wanted to make sure you saw a new study by the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts which shows this ballot question would eliminate $300 billion in Massachusetts property values.  Not only would this harm homeowners and renters alike in communities across the Commonwealth, it would also crush municipal budgets, and force local leaders to cut back on key services or drastically hike local tax rates to keep up.  Can you even image the impact here?

The details can be found at https://mahousingsolutions.com/rent-control, but the key takeaways, in addition to wiping out $300 billion in property values, found:

  • Almost immediately, the ballot question would upend the real estate market, shrinking the residential property tax base by 6-9 percent in municipalities all across the Commonwealth.
  • Every city and town would face substantial property tax losses, but the hit to urban areas and college towns would be especially acute, with projected declines of 15-20 percent.
  • The effects of rent control would be permanent, amounting to a sustained loss of investment for homeowners and a durably shrunken tax base for cities and towns.

The municipal data included in the study makes it clear: No corner of the state would be immune to the negative and permanent impacts of this rent control proposal. Voters across Massachusetts need to understand how this measure will affect them.

Thanks for helping us raise awareness, and if you’d like to learn more and help be a part of the fight, there are many ways to get involved! You will find a lot of information about this legislative issue and the impacts, but the Housing for Massachusetts study also calculated the estimated short-term and long-term impacts to property values and property taxes for every municipality in Massachusetts. Click through to find your community, as the example above shows for Pittsfield.