Gov. Maura Healey speaks on the Dec. 23, 2025 edition of GBH News' "Boston Public Radio" program at the station's Boston Public Library studios. Screenshot via State House News Service
Gov. Maura Healey took a stand against a statewide rent control proposal likely headed for the 2026 ballot Tuesday afternoon, saying it would harm efforts to bring down housing costs.
During an appearance on GBH News’ “Boston Public Radio” show, host Jim Braude asked how she would vote on a proposal to enforce one of the strictest caps on annual rent increases in the nation.
“Rent control is not going to be the solution to how we get through this crisis. We need to build more homes,” Healey said.
The Homes for All Massachusetts coalition, backed by tenants’ rights groups and the powerful Massachusetts Teachers Association and the SEIU service-industry union, are asking voters to approve a statewide ban on annual rent increases higher than the rate of inflation, topping out at 5 percent. Buildings in their first 10 years after construction would be exempt and the measure would use the rent in place as of Jan. 31, 2026 as the starting point for its calculations.
Some progressive leaders, including Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, have criticized the measure for going too far or for being too easily pilloried by business and real estate groups despite early polling that suggests rent control campaigners will be tilling fertile soil when making their case to voters.
Real estate industry figures say rent control will cause most investors and developers to take their business elsewhere, a sentiment Healey said she agrees with.
“If you look at the studies, you effectively halt production. I will tell you that investors in housing have already pulled out of Massachusetts because they’re worried about rent control. I don’t want to see housing production stopped. We need housing production to move forward,” Healey told Braude.
Rent increases in the city of Boston and its suburbs appear to have leveled off this fall thanks to the final pulse of apartments financed under the pandemic’s ultra-low interest rates and lower demand from international college students and domestic renters staying put in fear of an economic downturn. But the average monthly rent in Greater Boston still hit $2,877 in the third quarter, according to Colliers research.
“I’m trying to do everything I can to drive down housing costs,” Healey said, ticking off her administration’s housing wins from the last three years, including statewide ADU legalization, making a record $5.1 billion available to finance affordable housing construction and putting state-owned property up for conversion into homes.
Healey hinted that she would be open to some kind of alternative.
“I also understand what’s driving rent control forward and I want to work together to do something that’s sensible that creates more homes, builds more homes, and lowers costs for people,” she told Braude.
The head of a major landlord trade group that’s mounting its own push against the rent control measure praised Healey’s statement.
“We’re opposed to the rent control ballot question to the utmost. But the Governor took an extraordinary political risk to stick by the science on this one,” MassLandlords Executive Director Doug Quattrochi said in an email. “Rent control is an idea that sells itself. A lot of people in pain are going to vote for it. That’s why we built RentControlHistory.com, to remind the public of the failed history of this seemingly obvious idea.”
Major real estate industry trade groups, led by NAIOP-Massachusetts, are planning a $30 million advertising campaign against the ballot measure in 2026.
