[Yptur]

I think it is because the last to move makes the greatest profit. So people just wait to be the last wave of available apartments so they can hike the price up to whatever. Which leads to a bottleneck of sorts since nobody is willing to demand lower rent which would actually lead to people moving in...

[agent008t]

Could they not increase the price in the following years if the market price goes up?

An apartment sitting idle should be a disaster - the higher rent obtained in the following years would need to be significantly higher just to break even in terms of yield.

I would've thought as full occupancy as possible at all times, i.e. renting out at market rates, would be the most profitable strategy.

[Yptur]

Thus speculation haha. Especially if you can pass laws in your favor or the like I think this is the train of thought most of them have. If it didn't bring some kind of profit why would they do it? The only reason to not rent it out is if they think they will make more profit by holding out. The alternative is that they just hate their own money and want to burn it so that's how I come to this conclusion. By process of elimination.

Well it depends on where you are. Some places have different laws no idea about Dublin but some places protect renters from having the price spike up too quickly and have fixed rates once a contract is signed.

Edit: I of course have a subjective opinion on this from my point of view and where I am from the laws are heavily in favor of tenants so it is next to impossible to throw people out or hike up the price once an apartment is rented out.

[gtbcb]

This doesn't make sense to me. I don't think apartment complexes or individual landlords (who generally aren't super sophisticated) are thinking this way. Also, I just don't think this logic is sound. An individual landlord (or apartment) isn't going to affect the market as a whole.

[throwaway29319]

Large investors (billionaires, hedge funds...) do this, and they are powerful enough to drive the market in most cities. Individual landlords usually seek rent.