A lot of apartments in my area do first year discounts. The reason for that is a lot of cities have rules about how much you can raise rent in a year. Discounts are a loophole since they can raise it based off the non-discounted value. Also moving sucks and a new place has a chance of being terrible (and you’re stuck for a year). So people are more willing to pay an increase once they’re already in an apartment they tolerate.

Right now it’s smart to cycle through but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is the next thing to go.

What I could see happening is they keep raising monthly prices until the math doesn’t work out of them. Then they’ll introduce a small discount for locking in multiple months (3,6,12mon). Both will continue to rise in price but month to month will be quicker.