yeah this mostly works because kicking people out of housing isn't something we're super keen to make easy in ny. Also probably a lot of places are too leveraged to feel comfortable with a rent strike. Sure you are within your rights to kick everyone out because they wont agree to a 30% increase in rent - and someone definitely would rent your units for that. But itll take a year to remove the tenants, and none of them are paying, and you will go bankrupt in that year without any rent.