You're saying that even though landlords may justify rent increases because of new constructions, if new constructions hadn't been built they would have used a different justification? And the rent increase would have increased just as much?

That's possible!

Maybe the rent increase is independent of that single new construction. Or it could be mixed depending on the type of housing. I looked into it a bit more[1] and it seems like lower-quality apartments near a new build go up in price but high-quality ones go down in price.

[1]: https://nlihc.org/resource/new-construction-has-mixed-short-...