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> get the asking rents down

I know it eventually happens, but it seems like a lot of commercial landlords would rather have excessive vacancies than lower the rent to attract new tenants or keep existing tenants. Is there some kind of tax reason for it?

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It's not tax reasons. It is because they can pretend the building is worth X as long as they have tenants paying that rate and regardless of the vacancies, but as soon as they lease out at X`<<X they have to mark the value of the building down which upsets all of their financing. They are, in a loose sense, Wile E. Coyote just before he looks down.

Often they are highly leveraged and funded with no recourse debt. If they can't pay the mortgage without low vacancy at high rents, there's no point to lowering rents. Low vacancy and low rents still ends up with the landlord losing their entire investment and the bank owning the building.

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