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Massachusetts residents think housing is the most important issue at the state level, and large majorities support policy reforms that lawmakers for years have not embraced, a new poll found.

Pollsters with UMass Amherst surveyed 700 Bay Staters between Oct. 3 and 10, and they found “housing” was the most common answer when they asked respondents to describe the top issue in Massachusetts using one or two words.

Lawmakers and Gov. Maura Healey this year agreed on a nearly $5.2 billion law that authorizes more borrowing for housing than the state can afford, and includes significant policy reforms they hope will unlock much-needed production. The Legislature did not get behind Healey’s push to allow cities and towns to tax high-value real estate sales and steer the revenue toward affordable housing initiatives.

Although local-option transfer taxes failed to gain traction in the Legislature, the UMass Amherst poll found that residents like that idea: 61 percent said they strongly or somewhat support “allowing cities and towns to tax real estate transactions above $1 million to help raise funds for local affordable housing,” compared to 22 percent who strongly or somewhat oppose it.

That’s also the case for rent control, another controversial idea that legislative Democrats shelved this session. Sixty-seven percent of respondents supported “allowing local governments to limit how much rents can be increased each year,” and 19 percent opposed it.

Other ideas like providing tax breaks for developers to build more low-income housing or to convert empty office buildings into housing, requiring communities near the MBTA to zone for multi-family housing, and lowering the income threshold to qualify for affordable housing all saw large margins of support, too.

Pollsters asked several questions about another high-profile housing topic: the state’s strained emergency shelter system and the law guaranteeing a “right to shelter” for certain families and pregnant women.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents support the law and 25 percent oppose it, a slight shift from the 61 percent who supported it and 22 percent who opposed it when UMass Amherst asked a similar question in May.

Bay Staters were split on the impacts of changes the Healey administration and Legislature made to emergency shelter eligibility. Thirty-eight percent of taxpayers said the capacity and length-of-stay limits made the situation better for taxpayers, and an equal 38 percent said those changes made it worse for taxpayers.

About 29 percent of respondents said those changes also made the situation better for migrants, compared to 56 percent who think they made it worse for migrants.