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by chucksmash 2686 days ago
Not a landlord, but I imagine there are oodles of benefits to it from their perspective. If I can rent you an apartment for $4000.00 a month but tell you "$3666.67 (net rent w/ first month free)", then:

- Come next year, the default position is "you get a 10% rent hike by just paying the number on the lease."

- if you leave after a year, I've got price history at $4000 a month and can use that as an anchor for negotiations with the next tenant

There's nothing that says I have to start from fair market value and take a month off either. Say I call the apartment price 12/11ths of market value, but then advertise the net number and each month your great deal lets you pay only 11/11ths of FMV.

Bloomberg had something about this today[1] - something like 45% of leases in NYC have similar concessions.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-14/manhattan...