Yeah, second that. This is a real estate question that people who run office buildings and apartment buildings need to do all the time. You can have empty space if the other spaces make up for it. Or you can lower it month by month until you have all your spaces filled. You won't make the same amount of money each way, so you need to see how big the demand is and how much money you want to make. If you're feeling generous, lower the rent until all your spaces fill up, and then lower it some more.

If you're being altruistic, or want to cater to some really low budgets, you can have a "artist in residence" type program where you sponsor one or two spaces for free, or you can have a row of desks for single person freelancers that go for cheap.

The problem is the wide income distribution. One freelancer can make as many as 15 times the other one, so what's a fair price for one would be ridiculous for the other, and what's a fair price for the poor one would be under our break-even price. When it comes to apartments, 95% of the households fall within an x to 2x income range.

However, the way you suggested is automatically unfair. You're assuming that a richer person will want to pay more (and they will) but that they won't feel unfairness when poorer people get a better deal. Unfortunately, even if I was rich, knowing the person next to me was getting cheaper rent just because they were poor (or less successful or less hardworking) would seem unfair.

You might want to offer different services or spaces for different amounts, cutting back costs and offering cheaper/smaller space to make the inequities real, and therefore justifiable.

But why make the rich guys pay more? (If you want them to subsidize the poor, why not ask them outright?)

the goal of this auction pricing is not to increase occupancy, but to maximize profit especially from the customers that can afford it