Development of new market-rate rental housing in Saint Paul slowed after the rent-stabilization measure passed. According to the Metropolitan Council, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area’s metropolitan planning organization, more than four in five new rental units in Saint Paul had been market-rate in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, market-rate housing dropped to less than half of new rental housing.

While we don’t have hard data about what caused this drop, the property owners and developers we interviewed feel that rent stabilization has had a profound effect on the market. One property owner told us that it “feels like Saint Paul has gone back to being sleepy. Development is not as dynamic as it was before rent control.”

See here.