In 2018, California’s Proposition 10 threw landlords across the country into a panic. If passed, the ballot measure would have paved the way for expanded rent control throughout the state. One leading landlord trade group called the ballot measure “nothing short of an existential threat to the multifamily [landlord] industry.”

Worried about Prop 10’s reverberations in their own cities, landlords from Chicago, New York, and elsewhere raised over $70 million to defeat the ballot measure. The landlords ultimately prevailed — after outspending tenant advocates threefold.

Why did the prospect of rent control in California strike such expensive fear into the hearts of landlords across the country? For landlords, buildings are investments. Sometimes those investments are enormous: the investment firm Blackstone has pivoted to real estate in recent years, spending over $11 billion on it in the last three months of 2020 alone.