The write off is good, but it's always better to have income than no income. The issue for some of these landlords is that they control many hundreds of units sometimes, and lowering one sets the "market rate" and might end up lowering them all at next renewal.

For instance, imagine a $10K/mo spot that's vacant. But you could rent it at $8K/mo easily. You're giving up $8K x 12 every year, $96K! But if you have 5 other units renting at $10K on the same block and at renewal they'll pay market rate, you could lose $2K per month per renewal which would eat up your increased revenue. This is happening all over Manhattan especially where there's only a few landlords for a lot of the commercial space.

Meanwhile, you can write off the $120K loss with no tenant (possibly, depends on a variety of things) which might save you $40K-$60K on your taxes.

It's not true. You can only write off maintenance and repairs and maybe depreciation of the appliances. The key thing is you have to actively spend money on the property in order to write it off, which means it loses money on net. You can't claim a deduction for lost income.