I’m not sure why you’re unhappy with those of us pointing out fundamental flaws and offering alternatives to your legislative issues.

There are a lot of states addressing this with legislation. 

However, housing WHERE you want it, HOW you want it, and at a price YOU want to pay, well that's goes far beyond a "right".There have been many many solutions presented to improve housing affordability, like revamping our asinine building codes, reducing the cost of litigation, rewriting insanely punitive legislation such as the CRLTO, providing tax credits or reducing taxes, and increasing subsidies while reducing the red-tape associated with using those subsidies.

My guess is legislation will be passed either locally or Federally to make it illegal or to put some guidelines on the process To me, a fee should only be charged if credit/background is run and that should only happen after a tenant submits an application and has  been conditionally approved pending credit/background check. 

You will insulate yourself from any changing legislation.

If the answer is yes, then Opportunity Zones both enhance the potential for your own balance sheet, and allow you to redeploy capital from other investments.The two greatest unknowns that concern me are the duration of the investment for tax free gains, and future legislative changes that can dramatically alter the policy.

Now the million-dollar question is whether to pull the trigger on the build given the ominous/uncertain economic outlook. 

In case you were uncertain about how weird Massachusetts law can be, our licensing classes and CE courses specifically state that using the term "walking distance" or "a short walk" discriminates against people without legs.You CAN say 1/10th mile to the beach as that's an objective fact. 

Simply want to evaluate if the risk is even worth it before getting bogged down by the legislation.

Oh and yep - the more landlords treat tenants badly, the more tenants will fight for more restrictive legislation.