Whoever said “Any publicity is better than bad publicity” must not have been involved with real estate. The below linked article is about how a suburban Chicago restaurant with a strong reputation has not sold and now has a price reduction. I don’t know whether or not the brokerage which has the listing is an advertiser within the publication, but I do know that the article includes the contact info for the listing agent at the end.
If I was the agent mentioned, I would not be happy. In real estate, especially when it comes to marketing, “any” publicity is not always better. The article intends to pump up the years and reputation of the establishment, but mentioning the lack of success for the owners that are looking to sell hurts more than helps.
It reminds me of how the realty associations publish unfavorable home sale statistics when they don’t really need to. Publishing that, for example, “sales in (name of city) were down 3% from the previous month” makes a percentage of readers think there is now less of a demand or less appeal within the market. Many perceive it as being “harder” to sell now, which is (hopefully) not the intention.
There is a matter of trying to encourage the sale by including this article, which is understandable. Journalistic integrity would say to include the price reduction and time on market information, which it does. However, the marketing aspect tells me that a way to do that would have been to talk about how the owners are “still considering offers” and attempt to entice interested parties to contact the listing agent for details.
Those within the industry have just been shown that the owners will need to accept a lower price, which is likely to generate “lowball” offers ahead of serious inquiries.
A sale at a much lower price gets the transaction done, but could also serve to reduce commercial property values in the vicinity. Such a happening could also negatively impact residential values. It shows a lot about how a real estate property or opportunity should be presented. It should be positioned to make the buyer “first in” on a great opportunity!