Stabilized rent and increased 10 payments trick (apartment, lease, credit)

[vsapronov]

Hi,

While looking for a new apartment I found landlord using the following trick. The monthly rent was advertised as $1800 then when it comes to lease sign landlord's agent warned me that I'll have to make 10 increased payments instead of 12 with the same sum for the year. Now I have got the lease draft and I see the full picture. Here it is:
1) Apartment is stabilized (Landlord making benefit of tax exemption)
2) Monthly rent is set to $2160
3) Additional exhibit saying that landlord gives me credit of 2 x $2160, so I should not pay rent some particular months

Total year rent is the same as $1800 x 12 = $2160 x 10 = $21600

It seems that landlord is putting himself into stabilized rent law then he already pre-increased rent to $2160 in the building and that means that he will want $2160 per month on the second year (instead of $1800 + 2.2%) if I would like to sign next lease with him after the first year.

Am I missing something? What are advises here? What should I worry about? Is that schema is kind of common or it just was invented?