Not OP, but here is how I interpreted this.
Increase rents substantially -> no one takes it -> decrease rents over time until it hits a rate the market can bare -> people move in when rents are 100 dollars above what the previous tenets were paying.
I have no idea if that was this software or market change or what. It was huge complex. 700-800 units. At the time I just guessed that they raise the rent for everyone when their lease is up because most people don't want to move and will put up with the rent increase even if they hate it.
For me, the place had issues. If the rent had stayed the same I'd have put up with them just because it's easier to put off finding a new place, but $400 a month was enough for me to just move.
Think like this, if their asset is worth 400x the rent they would rather increase rent and give you temporary rebates than to ever reduce rent. Reducing rent by 100$ would cost them $40k, not something they would wanna do.