Comment by 59percentmore

Apartment landlords don't undercut each other. They raise rents in lockstep and then offer "specials" like a month off (amortized) that lower initial out-of-pocket costs without affecting the base rent, which gets raised on subsequent lease renewals to make up the difference. The only option to avoid this is moving every year (instability being clearly great for community /s) since corporate landlords will not negotiate rates.