The November 3, 2026 election features a consequential group of city-level rental-housing measures, concentrated in California but extending to Minnesota and Ohio. For apartment owners, the common theme is clear: policy is moving beyond traditional rent caps toward more durable limits on eviction remedies, tenant-screening practices, deposits, and property-level administration.

The measures discussed below are pending as of September 20, 2026. Predictions are necessarily judgment calls rather than forecasts: campaign finance, turnout, ballot wording, litigation, and late-breaking local issues can still materially affect the outcome.

Bay Area rent regulation

Redwood City Measure E would establish the city’s first broad local rent-control and just-cause eviction regime. The initiative would limit annual increases for covered older rental properties to the lesser of 5 percent or 60 percent of CPI, while expanding protections for tenants, including specified protections for seniors. ¹ The official city description identifies the measure as imposing “additional rent control and just cause eviction limits.”²

Its likelihood of passage appears moderate to high. Redwood City’s high housing costs, renter constituency, and the familiar message of limiting rent increases make the proposal politically legible. The City Council sent the qualified citizen initiative to the ballot rather than adopting it, and the campaign already has active tenant-advocacy support.³ Owners, however, have a meaningful case on administrative burden, operating-cost pressure, and the prospect that a relatively rigid cap will discourage reinvestment in older inventory.

If approved, Measure E would be significant because it would add a major Peninsula city to the list of Bay Area rent-regulated jurisdictions. For owners of older buildings, the immediate practical work would be a unit-by-unit coverage analysis, revised increase procedures, careful documentation of tenancy and notices, and underwriting that recognizes a less flexible revenue-growth profile. It could also become a policy model for other affluent, high-cost suburban municipalities that have until now resisted broad rent regulation.

San Pablo Measure S is more restrictive on its face. It would cap increases for certain units at the lesser of 3 percent or 60 percent of CPI, establish a process for additional increases, impose just-cause restrictions, and add other housing regulations. The city estimates implementation costs of approximately $1.08 million to $2.36 million annually, funded through annual rental-property-owner fees. ⁴

Measure S has a moderate likelihood of prevailing, but its outcome may be closer than Redwood City’s. The 3 percent-or-60-percent-of-CPI formula is easy for opponents to characterize as economically severe, especially during periods when insurance, repairs, utilities, labor, and compliance costs rise faster than permitted rent growth. The owner-funded municipal program also turns the ballot measure into a direct operating-expense issue. Yet tenant advocates have a powerful affordability argument, and a municipal campaign around a clear numeric cap can perform well in a renter-heavy electorate. ⁵

The larger significance is that San Pablo could demonstrate the next generation of local rent regulation: not merely an annual cap, but a linked system of rent review, eviction constraints, relocation-related rules, administrative hearings, and owner fees. Apartment owners should recognize that the cost is not confined to foregone rent growth; it includes compliance staffing, reporting, dispute exposure, and potentially longer timelines to resolve possession issues.

Berkeley Measure X is less a new rent-control system than an important tightening and modernization of an existing one. It would amend Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization and Eviction for Just Cause Ordinance, including limiting certain registration and rent-control exemptions when a unit was not exempt at the beginning of the current tenancy, capping any use of “banked” annual increases at 10 percent, revising owner-occupied-duplex notice rules, and extending certain tenant-association rights to smaller properties. ⁶

Measure X has a high likelihood of passage. Berkeley’s political environment is strongly tenant-oriented, the measure is framed as a set of technical amendments rather than a dramatic new policy, and it has organized support from renter and civic groups. ⁷ The absence of a simple headline rent cap may reduce opposition intensity, even though the exemption and banking provisions can materially affect building economics.

For owners, Measure X matters because it illustrates how regulatory risk often compounds incrementally. A property may not face a newly enacted rent-control ordinance, yet its historic exemptions, deferred rent adjustments, and management procedures may become less valuable. In due diligence, lenders, buyers, and brokers should review not only present rent levels but also the legal basis for exemption, prior registrations, preserved rights, and future rent-growth capacity.

Southern California eviction rules

Santa Monica Measure RR would prohibit eviction for nonpayment unless the unpaid amount exceeds the average HUD Small Area Fair Market Rent for a comparable unit in the city’s relevant ZIP codes. It applies to both rent-controlled units and other units subject to Santa Monica’s Housing Policies Charter Amendment protections. The required termination notice would also need to state the unit’s bedroom count and applicable fair-market-rent threshold. ⁸

Measure RR appears very likely to pass. It was placed on the ballot by the City Council, and the official voter material reports no submitted argument against it. ⁹ In a jurisdiction with a long-established rent-control culture, a measure presented as preventing eviction over relatively small arrearages is likely to be persuasive.

Its significance exceeds the amount of a particular delinquency. The measure changes the timing and leverage of nonpayment enforcement. An owner would retain the ability to collect rent debt through other means but may be unable to use eviction until arrearages exceed the designated threshold. ¹⁰ Owners and managers should prepare by strengthening early-intervention collection protocols, payment-plan documentation, rental-assistance coordination, and notice review. The relevant underwriting question is not simply “Will bad debt increase?” but also “How much additional working capital and loss-to-lease time must the property carry before an unlawful-detainer remedy becomes available?”

Midwest tenant-rights measures

St. Paul’s tenant right-to-repair initiative would allow tenants, after written notice and at least 14 days without reasonable repair, to arrange certain repairs and require the owner either to reimburse the cost or permit a rent deduction. The deduction would be capped at the lesser of $500 or one-half of one month’s rent. ¹¹ The measure’s legal status remains unusually important: a Ramsey County judge ordered it onto the ballot after the City Council sought to block it, but reporting indicates that litigation may still affect whether votes are counted or the measure can take effect.¹²

Substantively, passage is plausible but legally uncertain. Voters may favor a narrowly framed habitability remedy, particularly when it is presented as a response to unrepaired conditions. But the unresolved legal process means that a “yes” vote may not produce an immediately operative ordinance.

For owners, the practical lesson applies whether or not the measure takes effect: maintenance-response systems are now a political and financial-risk issue. Written repair requests, work-order timestamps, vendor dispatch records, tenant communications, and emergency triage procedures should be treated as core risk-management files—not merely service records.

Akron’s two housing-related charter amendments would make meaningful changes at the front end of the tenancy. One would require three- or six-month security-deposit installment plans, prohibit retaliation for using them, and ban application, screening, credit-check, and background-check fees. The other would make criminal history and source of income protected characteristics in housing, with stated exclusions for sex offenders and arson offenders, enforced through the Akron Civil Rights Commission. ¹³

Both measures have a moderate-to-high likelihood of passage. They reached the ballot through petitions organized by Freedom BLOC and were placed before voters by a unanimous 12–0 City Council vote after the petitions qualified. ¹⁴ That institutional pathway does not guarantee voter approval, but it signals that the proposals are politically credible and difficult to dismiss as fringe measures.

Their significance is operational. Deposit financing affects move-in cash flow, screening-fee prohibitions require owners to absorb or redesign verification costs, and source-of-income protection requires voucher-ready leasing systems. Criminal-history protections will require careful, consistently applied screening criteria that comply with the charter’s exceptions and avoid disparate-treatment risk. For smaller owners in particular, the burden will be administrative as much as economic.

Owner takeaway

Taken together, these measures show a shift from regulating the price of housing to regulating the entire landlord-tenant relationship. Rent-growth controls remain important, but the 2026 ballot landscape also targets nonpayment evictions, repair timing, deposits, applicant fees, screening, vouchers, and exemptions.

Apartment owners should respond now by reviewing property-level rent-regulation status, rent-increase documentation, lease forms, collection procedures, maintenance logs, screening standards, and fee practices. In transactions, buyers should underwrite political and compliance risk as a separate line item—not as a generic contingency. The measures most likely to matter are not only the dramatic citywide rent caps; they are also the technical amendments and procedural protections that gradually alter income timing, operating costs, and the ability to manage a building predictably.

Written by Wesley V. Wellman

Wesley V. Wellman has been active in the financial services field for more than 40 years. His brokerage firm, Wellman Realty Company, specializes in multi-family and commercial investment property. Since the year 2000, Mr. Wellman has sold over $342 million of investment property. He is a Santa Monica apartment industry leader and is frequently quoted in the local press about rental property issues. He is one of the founding directors of the Action Apartment Association, which was formed in 1980. As an advisor, Mr. Wellman draws on a wealth of educational background in real estate, taxation, securities and estate planning.

Footnotes: 1. ABC7 News, “2026 Election: Redwood City Voters to Decide on New Rent Control Laws with Measure E,” September 14, 2026, reporting that Measure E would cover certain older properties, cap annual increases at the lesser of 5 percent or 60 percent of CPI, and provide additional protections for certain tenants, including persons older than 62. 2. City of Redwood City, “Measures,” 2026 Municipal Election Information, identifying Measure E as “an initiative to impose additional rent control and just cause eviction limits in Redwood City” and stating that it was submitted to voters for the November 3, 2026 election. 3. The Registry, “Redwood City Sends Sweeping Rent-Control Measure to November Ballot, Rattling Peninsula Landlords,” July 14, 2026, reporting that the City Council unanimously voted to place the qualified citizen-led initiative on the ballot rather than adopt it outright. 4.City of San Pablo, “November 3rd, 2026 Ballot Measures,” official ballot-measure page, describing the proposed rent-increase limit, additional-increase process, eviction restrictions, and estimated annual city-administration cost of $1.08 million to $2.36 million, funded by annual rental-property-owner fees. 5. California Apartment Association, “San Pablo Repeals Rent Registry, Orders Review of Proposed Rent-Control Ballot Measure,” June 23, 2026, describing the initiative’s broader regulatory framework, including eviction rules, relocation payments, tenant safety plans, rights of return, buyouts, administration, hearings, and enforcement. 6. League of Women Voters of the Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville Area, “Vote with the League November 2026,” describing Berkeley Measure X’s proposed changes to exemptions, owner-occupied duplex notice, nonprofit fee relief, annual registration procedures, 10 percent cap on banked increases, and tenant-association rights. 7. City of Berkeley, “Ballot Measures,” listing Measure X, “Amendments to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance,” as a majority-vote measure on the November 3, 2026 ballot. 8. City of Santa Monica, “General Election 2026: Measure RR,” official ballot text and City Attorney’s impartial analysis, describing the HUD Small Area Fair Market Rent threshold, notice requirements, and application to both rent-controlled and covered non-rent-controlled units. 9.City of Santa Monica, “General Election 2026: Measure RR,” stating that Measure RR was placed on the ballot by the Santa Monica City Council and that no argument against the measure was submitted. 10. City of Santa Monica, “General Election 2026: Measure RR,” City Attorney’s impartial analysis, stating that the measure does not affect an owner’s right to collect unpaid rental debt through means other than eviction. 11. Ballotpedia, “St. Paul, Minnesota, Tenant Repair and Rent-Deduction Ballot Initiative Will Be on November Ballot,” September 10, 2026, describing a right-to-repair proposal allowing tenant-arranged repair, reimbursement or rent deduction after written notice and at least 14 days, capped at $500 or one-half of one month’s rent. 12.Ballotpedia, “St. Paul, Minnesota, Tenant Repair and Rent-Deduction Ballot Initiative Will Be on November Ballot,” September 10, 2026, reporting that a Ramsey County judge ordered the measure onto the ballot after City Council opposition and that litigation could affect vote counting. 13. Ideastream Public Media, “Akron City Council Places 3 New Proposals on November Ballot,” August 31, 2026, describing the two housing charter amendments concerning deposit-payment plans and application fees, and criminal-history and source-of-income protections with enforcement by the Akron Civil Rights Commission. 14. Ideastream Public Media, “Akron City Council Places 3 New Proposals on November Ballot,” August 31, 2026, reporting that Freedom BLOC organized the petitions, the petitions had sufficient valid signatures, and Akron City Council approved the ballot proposals 12–0.