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

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-landlords-shrink-freebies-raise-rents-as-demand-grows https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-14/manhattan...