But my friends when was the last time you EVER heard of this.......I was renting an apt for the last 3 years at $1000/month and went to the leasing office to renew my lease and they told me it was my lucky day my lease was going to drop in half to $500 per month due to low vacancies caused by the recession.  

We've signed a lease, and it begins on July 1, 2018. 

My lease is coming to an end.

@Heidi M. what does your lease say about people living there that aren't on the lease?

You should have a separate operations entity - that will do all the public interfacing, property management, hiring of contractors, leasing, etc.

Me and my friends moved out on june 6 and submitted the keys that night in the dropbox of the leasing office.

My tenants called today informing me they are breaking their lease and moving out. 

Also they seem very happy that with 2 weeks to go until completion and they have 50% of the building pre-leased... maybe that is a good thing, but that really is only 3 units, I read that as they couldn't get another 3 tenants to rent in that area for that price point.    

There are tenants still living in the property.Is it better to simply evict them and start over or should we post notice that we will be needing them to sign a lease?

A tenant who wants to stay in a property indefinitely at the current rent could theoretically schedule an inspection and freeze their rent and lease.