Settlement is one of the conditions that SF Bay realtors draw a very hard line around. I have on several occasions seen just the possibility of settlement kill deals and drive prices down by huge percentages. Similar to black mold.
The explanation that makes sense to me is that settlement is a problem that could be very costly and disruptive over a long period of time, and it's expensive and complicated to prove otherwise. So in the case of the Millennium Tower, they did in fact attempt to prove that the settlement was not going to cause major long-term problems, but that seemingly had no impact on the price behavior. I think with such an ingrained pattern, there isn't really a way to force buyers to think unconventionally; everyone "knows" that you don't buy in a building with settlement, and no one "knows" that there are circumstances where it's OK to buy anyway.
The explanation that makes sense to me is that settlement is a problem that could be very costly and disruptive over a long period of time, and it's expensive and complicated to prove otherwise. So in the case of the Millennium Tower, they did in fact attempt to prove that the settlement was not going to cause major long-term problems, but that seemingly had no impact on the price behavior. I think with such an ingrained pattern, there isn't really a way to force buyers to think unconventionally; everyone "knows" that you don't buy in a building with settlement, and no one "knows" that there are circumstances where it's OK to buy anyway.