Letter From the Executive Director for November 2026: A Rental Real Estate Newsletter in the Age of AI

Last month, we decided to change the way we produce content for our newsletter and website. The change is motivated by the rise of AI, or specifically, “large language models” that generate text (“generative AI.”) In a nutshell, a portion of most articles going forward will only be accessible to members logged in on our site. Before you throw your print newsletter or tablet across the room, hear me out.

Web traffic to MassLandlords is down roughly one-third over the last two years. Membership revenue and membership counts are more or less steady, which is no small achievement. Why is traffic down?

It used to be that if you wanted to know how long you had to return a security deposit, you’d google “security deposit Massachusetts return end of lease” and get a link to MassLandlords, mass.gov, and a few other sites. You’d read the pages and learn enough to find your answer.

Now, you can ask your question in natural language. “How much time after the end of a lease do I have to return a security deposit in Massachusetts? Be concise.” When I asked this of Chat GPT-6 Luna, it replied: “Generally, the landlord must return your deposit (minus lawful deductions) within 30 days after the tenancy ends. If you move out early under a written lease, the deadline is 30 days after the lease ends.” It could only be better if instead of “Generally,…” it said, “To avoid triple damages…” and if the “you” were written as for a landlord, rather than for a tenant. Basically, that answer is 100% correct.

In this response, MassLandlords is nowhere to be seen. The two verification links are to mass.gov and malegislature.gov, which are both more authoritative than we are, being the state itself. Even if we were listed as one of the sources, there would be little incentive to click. That feels like the right answer, so the average landlord looks no further.

Set aside all the problems with generative AI, like the copyright infringement and the widespread use of sooty diesel in data centers: generative AI is here to stay.

Rather than continue to write articles entirely for generative AIs, in the hopes that they will list us in future chat results, we’re going to start restricting higher level article content to members. That’s it. If you’re a member, just log in on your device. Not a member? You can still read the public portion of articles.

Every member now has the ability to grant access to others related to their business. Just visit MassLandlords.net/business. Not a member? Join. Dues cover your entire team.

I hope this change seems trivial to you. We’re already logging into websites all the time. Just log into MassLandlords. Unlike other websites, you can direct what we write: Do you want to see particular content developed? Do you want us to mine the court data to see which judges decide which way on which issues? Do you want to see more about which variances are granted and which are denied? What else can we be doing to serve you better? Let us know.

Our mission is to create better rental housing. That means your building. Tell us what you need, email hello@masslandlords.net.

Sincerely,

Doug

Executive Director

MassLandlords, Inc.