AFAIK Commercial is priced at a multiple of rent. So when an owner still has a loan on a building that was based off of multiple of 3000/mo and decides to rent it out for 1500/mo it effectively cuts the value of that building in half.

Just an accounting issue for someone who owns it out right, but devastating for someone with a loan. I think this is why you’re seeing landlords offering multiple free months of rent nowadays. It allows them to adjust to actual market pricing annualized, while being able to call the “free” months an expense

i don't know if it's the same everywhere, but in my town there's essentially no taxes on vacant commercial buildings. the tax rate is based on the use

and so landlords who own a whole bunch of properties would much rather a unit sit empty for a year than lower the rent to fill it, becauase it costs them basically nothing and lowering the rent on one unit might have a cascading effect that lowers the rents on all their other properties.

I see this also, but I don’t get it. An empty building still costs a bunch of taxes and upkeep and still rapidly deteriorates without tenants looking after it. Aren’t these people hemorrhaging money? What do they have to show for it? My city actually handled a majority of the rent so a business could revitalize a large-ish property that had been empty for years. Of course it failed as soon as that deal ran out.

It's because commercial property is bought and bundled up into REITs and they would rather have a property go unleaded than to lower rates.

land value taxes would fix this. is too cheap to sit on derelict property

When the capital owner has thousands of properties, why spend energy on optimizing a few to make cities more liveable?

Consolidation, as always, is eating the society like cancer.