Letter from the Executive Director for September 2023: Three Year Planning

August flew by for me because I had an apartment for rent and received 161 inquiries over two weeks. The housing market is quite bad for renters at the moment. MassLandlords’ guidance is needed more than ever, which is why we actively contributed to the Mass Save three-year planning process, rent control opposition, and public outreach on housing issues. We also navigated health and wellness challenges and technology upgrades.

Through MassLandlords, you have a voice on the Department of Energy Resource’s Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, which is tasked with developing the next three-year plan for Mass Save. We are one of the three “outside organization seats” present on the equity working group, a subcommittee. We arranged verbal testimony on Aug. 21 and hope to see recommendations to expand access for landlords especially in low-income neighborhoods.

We have also put organizational attention into our project to create better videos. We’ve known for a long time that video presence is important, but we’ve always struggled to reach the numbers we know are possible. This new series will be renter-facing (or more generally public-facing) and will provide a platform for us to reach a wider audience. We have upgraded our video, audio, backdrop, editing, b-roll and content creation processes. The only thing we haven’t been able to upgrade is my face, which will have to do for now.

Opposition to rent control is getting organized. This edition describes the 2024 ballot initiative. We are in touch with the major real estate advocacy groups. They are keeping us informed, and we them.

Technology-wise, we’ve made some upgrades to our processes. First, all MassLandlords.net email now complies with a newly specified DMARC policy. We hope this will result in better deliverability and less spam. We’ve also started manually creating a weekly digest email to highlight upcoming events and recently published articles. Finally, we’ve built some automation around sorting events and articles and have applied this to the home page, which now shows nine recent or spotlighted posts.

Remember that our annual business meeting is coming up and we need nominations for the Board of Directors. Also, a series of nine bylaws changes are to be proposed for MassLandlords. These should help enshrine certain cultural aspects of how we run things, including our Certified Massachusetts Landlord™ program and also our Policy Priorities Survey. At our most recent board meeting, the Board approved.

Thank you for supporting our mission to create better rental housing. Please join as a member, become a property rights supporter or increase your level of support. We aim to hire both a full-time educator and policy advocate.

Sincerely,

Douglas Quattrochi

Executive Director

MassLandlords, Inc.