The listings we declined, and the exact rule that decided them.

Why did a "well-established" restaurant asking $280,000 fail screening?

The listing called it a local favorite with loyal regulars. The stated cash flow was $5,202 a year on a quarter-million-dollar ask — not a rounding error, a structural mismatch between what the business earns and what it's priced to sell for.

A restaurant can be genuinely loved by its regulars and still not throw off enough cash to justify its asking price. Those are two different questions, and a warm write-up will blur them every time.

Rule R-1.1 — Verified SDE floor PASS

Why was a Southern California banquet hall declined, but not because it's a bad business?

Solid-looking business, reasonable size, real license in hand. The listing itself stated the seller would not consider SBA financing. For a standard SBA-buyer profile, that's an automatic decline — not because the business is weak, but because the financing structure doesn't fit the buyer being screened against it.

Most screening stops at "declined, next listing." We route this kind of deal to an all-cash buyer profile instead of discarding it. Declined and bad are not the same word.

Financing-fit routing, not a quality decline ROUTED

Can a franchise with a 19-unit system and healthy DSCR still fail underwriting?

The debt coverage on this one looked fine. It failed anyway, because the verified SDE floor is a separate, non-negotiable gate — a deal can carry its own financing comfortably and still be too small for a given buyer's underwriting standard. Coverage ratios and floor thresholds answer different questions, and a healthy one doesn't excuse a failed other.

Rule R-1.1 — Verified SDE floor PASS

Why do health-related distress sales still get declined, even at a steep discount?

A genuine, sympathetic reason for selling — but a lower price doesn't fix a fundamentally undersized cash flow profile. Discipline means declining on the numbers regardless of the story behind the sale, which is exactly the situation a warm-hearted buyer is most likely to override against their own interest.

Rule R-1.1 — Verified SDE floor PASS

Why does a profitable laundromat get declined over a lease?

The economics on this one weren't the problem. A 2,700 square foot store in South Los Angeles, real cash flow, a part-time employee handling open and close. On the numbers alone it reads like a working business.

The lease expires in about two months, with no renewal option. Whoever buys this is buying a business that could lose its premises before the first quarter closes, and then negotiating a brand new lease from the weakest possible position: as the new owner, with equipment bolted to a floor they no longer have rights to.

Laundromat capital is uniquely immobile. Plumbing, electrical, and machine installation are sunk into that specific address. That's why our lease rule is harder here than in restaurants, and why it applies to cash buyers too, not just financed ones. No lender is forcing the issue. Physics is.

Rule L-1.3 — Lease runway floor PASS

How does DealStamp catch a laundromat seller overstating revenue?

Laundromats have something restaurants don't: a physically verifiable revenue check. Water usage (in HCF), cross-referenced against machine specs and price per cycle, produces an independent revenue estimate — no POS access required. On one real listing, the water-bill math came in 21% below what the seller claimed, which is a decline-level gap under our rules, not a rounding difference.

Rule L-1.4 — Water-bill revenue verification PASS