> They could cut rent drastically and people still might not show up.
You could sell ice cream for 5 cents on a hot summer day and people might not buy it. Try it and find out; there has been speculation in the past that lowering prices raises sales.
Sure. But if you took out a huge mortgage to buy your ice cream business based on anticipated sales, there are certain prices you cannot go below without going bankrupt.
In a way, this is worse with real estate. With ice cream you can always make up losses with volume (to a certain extent). With real estate you have a fixed supply.
Moreover, if you drop the price to get a new tenant, you implicitly drop the price for all existing units as well.
You could sell ice cream for 5 cents on a hot summer day and people might not buy it. Try it and find out; there has been speculation in the past that lowering prices raises sales.