Letter From the Executive Director for August 2026: Income and Expenses

We’re past rent control crisis 2026, but the truth is rent control is coming back for 2028. Also, they’ve been preparing to turn the next screw with the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. The lesson is that we need a lot more revenue. We need to operate with a lot less cost. We need our bank balance to be growing for the next fight. And we need to do so much more than fight bad policy ideas. You have housing and we can help you operate it. To do more, we need to make sure the MassLandlords income statement is healthy.

We’re cutting costs. We discuss in this edition that we’re eliminating the flipbook format of the newsletter, Issuu. We are exploring moving away from Intuit QuickBooks for payroll. And we’ve loaned part-time hours for two team members to RentHelper. There’s more we can do, including eventually extending our payments system to allow members to pay by bank account instead of credit card.

We have to increase revenue for a variety of reasons. First, the price of the print newsletter hasn’t been adjusted for inflation in years. Each edition printed costs twice what we charge. We will fix this. Second, we are overdue for inflation-based increases to dues. Our last increase was two years ago, since which time inflation has been 6% combined. We’ve spent a lot of development effort the last four years rolling out price per unit with a monthly payment option. This now aligns our pricing with how the rental market operates. As of this month, nearly all members have access to the new billing system. Third, I continue to do far too much myself. I am basically unreplaceable, given how little my role gets compensated for the breadth of skills required. We need the ability to hire.

I’ve heard from a few folks that dues are expensive. The reality is dues should be paying for themselves. We have to proactively leverage our benefits. There are two dozen benefits and step-by-step instructions for how to access them. You can email hello@masslandlords.net and we will help you.

I say regularly in my fundraisers that we needn’t be outgunned in the policy arena: Every month our members collect something between $50 million and $100 million of rent. (The math is simple: 20 units owned on average, times $1,500 average statewide rent, times 2,600 members. I rounded down and up to the nearest $50 million to come up with a range. Not all members have to report their units. Rents vary widely.) Overall, we are a force to be reckoned with!

The trouble with this revenue figure is that our housing is very expensive to operate. I know full well that none of us has the money we need for the projects we want to do: roofs, siding, kitchens, plumbing. It all costs a lot.

But think of how much more it would have cost you without MassLandlords! You’d be staring down rent control. The deleading credit would be half of what it is. There would be little to no opportunity to access Mass Save for rental housing. You wouldn’t be allowed to motion for rent escrow in court during an eviction proceeding. There would be no RentHelper for tough tenants, and no Massachusetts Urban Conservancy for junk land.

Together we’re creating better rental housing. We’re managing our income and expenses. Please do likewise: Learn to use your benefits and make sure dues are paying for themselves, if they are not already. Remember we’re here to help you.

Sincerely,

Doug

Executive Director

MassLandlords, Inc.