It's a lot easier for people to see this argument with basic income than with minimum wage, but the signaling on property owners ends up being the same whether you know for certain all your tenants now have an extra $x in funds or just some of them might now be getting a raise to the new minimum wage. From the property manager perspective, suddenly they're getting more demand on units than they were previously, so they balance that by increasing rents. An increased minimum wage can play a part in that rise in demand even if no single person can afford an apartment on their own at minimum wage. For instance perhaps there's a group of 4 people cramped in one apartment, but now with all of them getting more money, they can afford to split off into two groups of 2. Until the landlord raises rents, anyway, because they aren't enough units for everyone to do that and building new units takes time.