That is why I said "relatively inelastic". Raise the price too high and eventually you won't fill the unit because some other landlord will relent and stop raising their price in order to get their unit rented. This is basically the foundation of market theory. Collusion stops people from relenting and makes the market more like a monopoly which gives that side power to manipulate the market price.

I think perhaps one of the issues might be that price hikes would be more readily co-ordinated across regions. As such, a system that knows it is putting up prices in an area from which people will likely move, can simultaneously recommend putting up prices in the area to which those people would otherwise have moved to escape higher prices.

Its accurate that landlords have always had the ability to gamble on the highest possible rent hike

Its also accurate that social pressure on the landlord has always been an option, as opposed to disdain of the nomadic people that are interested in paying the given hiked rate

Not true.

Even a perfectly inelastic (vertical) demand curve still intersects the supply curve at some price.

In other words, even if I would pay infinite dollars for a widget, I would still purchase from the cheapest supplier.