This Op-Ed was published in the Boston Herald on June 12, 2026.

Craney: Rent control a tax hike on Mass. homeowners

By Paul Diego Craney and Jared Walczak

At a time when Massachusetts residents are already struggling with high housing costs, a new proposal threatens to make things worse in a way many homeowners may not expect.

Rent control is often framed as a policy aimed at helping renters, but a new study from the Fiscal Alliance Foundation finds that it would also raise property taxes on homeowners across the Commonwealth.

The reason is straightforward. Property taxes in Massachusetts are driven by local budgets, not fixed rates. When the value of one category of property declines, the tax burden does not disappear. It shifts.

Under a rent control system, the value of rental housing falls. It is a function of how property is assessed. Rental properties are valued based on the income they generate. When government caps that income, property values decline accordingly.

The proposed rent control ballot question would be the most aggressive in the nation. Massachusetts would be the fourth state in the nation to adopt the policy and the first on the East Coast. Under the proposal, the mandate applies statewide with no municipal opt-out, caps annual rent increases at the lesser of inflation or 5%, and contains no vacancy decontrol mechanism, effectively locking in 2026 rental prices as the baseline in perpetuity for existing properties.

Our study estimates that rent control would reduce rental property values by more than 30% over time. That translates into a significant drop in the share of property taxes paid by those properties. To make up the difference, unless municipalities make budget cuts, taxes are shifted onto other property owners, including homeowners, through higher mill levies.

The mill levy, which is the tax rate applied to a property's assessed value to calculate local property taxes, rises automatically to maintain the level of revenue necessary to fund the budget. These increases are not constrained by Proposition 2½ because the levy increases are intended only to maintain current collection levels.

The result is higher tax bills for people who do not benefit from rent control at all.

Statewide, the median homeowner would see an increase of about $312 per year in property taxes, even as the value of their home declines, with rent control degrading community quality as maintenance and investment dry up. Had these effects been present for the past ten years, the median home's cumulative property tax burden would have been almost $2,600 higher over the past decade. Over the life of a typical mortgage, that adds up to nearly $19,000 in additional tax burden.

The burden would fall heaviest on urban communities with large rental populations. In Boston, the average homeowner would pay more than $1,100 extra each year, while in cities like Lowell and Worcester, tax increases could approach or exceed 10%.

These outcomes are not unique to Massachusetts. They are consistent with what has happened in other jurisdictions.

In Portland, Maine, rent control led to a measurable decline in property values and a corresponding shift in tax burdens onto homeowners. In St. Paul, Minnesota, property values dropped sharply within months of adopting rent control, while new housing construction slowed dramatically. In Cambridge, rent control depressed rental property values by as much as 50% before voters ultimately repealed the policy.

The pattern is clear. Rent control reduces the value of rental housing, discourages investment, and shrinks the tax base. When that happens, homeowners are left to pick up the tab.

Supporters of rent control often argue that it is necessary to address housing affordability. But policies that discourage new housing construction and degrade existing housing stock only make that problem worse over time. Limiting supply while increasing demand is a recipe for higher prices, not lower ones.

There is also a fairness issue. Studies consistently show that the benefits of rent control are skewed toward higher-income tenants who are better positioned to remain in controlled units over time. An analysis of Massachusetts' prior experience with rent control concluded that people of color occupied only 12% of rent-controlled units despite representing 24% of residents in rent-controlled cities, and that the benefits of rent control disproportionately flowed to higher-income tenants.

Massachusetts has tried rent control before, and voters rejected it more than three decades ago. The evidence since then, both here and elsewhere, has only strengthened the case against it. For homeowners across the Commonwealth, the bottom line is simple: rent control is not just a housing policy. It is a tax increase. And it is one they will be asked to pay.

Paul Diego Craney is executive director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation and Jared Walczak is president of Walczak Policy Consulting.