By Adam Pagnucco.
Below are the top ten stories on Montgomery Perspective in January 2026, ranked by page views.
1. MoCo Multifamily Permits Drop 96 Percent with Rent Control
2. MCGEO Files Grievance After County Employees Were Attacked
3. Sully Wants to Guarantee Non-Democratic Council Seats
4. Why is Elrich Trying to Undo One of His Greatest Achievements?
5. Rent Control is Damaging the County’s Capital Budget
6. Council Staff Warns on Dire Economy
7. Builders Oppose Relocating Wootton High School
8. How Montgomery County Government Dismantled a Black Community
9. Uy Loans Himself $85,000 to Fight Gino
10. PTA Survey: Parents Leery of MCPS Chromebooks
One story completely dominated last month’s page views: MoCo Multifamily Permits Drop 96 Percent with Rent Control. It had more than double the views of the second-ranked article and has surpassed all other posts since July’s MoCo’s Multifamily Construction Market Disappears. At this writing, the article’s posting on Reddit appears second in a Google search for “Montgomery County MD rent stabilization” behind only the county government’s web page on the law.
This is what people see when they Google “Montgomery County MD rent stabilization” in early February 2026.
With MoCo’s multifamily housing collapse running rampant across Google and Reddit, the cost of rent control is becoming crystal clear. We were not building enough housing to keep up with demand before rent control, and now with it, we are building even less of it.
The county council’s passage of rent control (with Council Members Gabe Albornoz, Marilyn Balcombe, Andrew Friedson and Dawn Luedtke voting no) was a mistake of judgment. But the council’s failure to clean up a mess they themselves made is much worse. Reviving our non-competitive economy while carrying a moribund residential real estate sector may be an insurmountable challenge, particularly given the noxious budgetary fumes spewing from the Oval Office up towards Rockville.
On to February.