Not chasing
Which measured demand are we refusing to serve, and is the reason still the reason?
Categories held
4
reviewed at the same meeting as the funding list, every month, out loud
A refusal that is never re-read becomes a policy nobody remembers agreeing to.
Demand being refused
470 searches
in slate alone — 33% of every roofing search, and the sharpest supply signal in the market
It appears on the funding list as short of sellers, which is true and is not the whole sentence.
Held for safety, not economics
3 of 4
the fourth is a commercial judgement and is labelled as one, on the same screen
What has to be true to hold a category
- 1A named harm, to a named person, that we cannot design out of the listing.
- 2Or: somebody within an hour's drive already does it properly, and we would be a worse version of them.
- 3The demand figure is printed either way. Refusing something nobody wants is not a decision.
- 4It is re-read monthly. Three of these four have survived every review since 2024 and one has not been argued about at all, which is its own warning.
A held category keeps showing on the market screen as short of sellers for ever, because it is. The two screens are not reconciled and should not be — one measures the market, this one records what we decline to do about it.
Why the commercial one is on this list
Fireplaces are not dangerous and we are not pretending they are. We would simply be the fourth-best place in Asheville to buy one, and being fourth-best is not a market position, it is a slow way to spend money.
It sits beside the three safety holds rather than on a page of its own because a separate page for “things we chose not to do” is a page that gets reopened every time a quarter goes badly. One list, one review, one argument.
The four, with the demand each one is refusing
Reclaimed slate — bulk lots over one roof
1,440 searches a month, 33% of them empty
The demand is real and we cannot serve it honestly. Nobody can certify a mixed slate lot for a whole roof, and a roof that fails in four years is somebody's ceiling. We list single-roof lots with provenance and refuse the rest.
Painted timber pre-1978
Steady, and mostly from homeowners
Lead paint. We are not equipped to test it and a marketplace listing is not the place a homeowner should be finding out. Trade buyers who ask are pointed at the yards that handle it properly.
Anything structural without a source building
Strong on beams especially
A beam with no provenance is a beam nobody can grade. We would sell every one of them and it is the single fastest way for this business to end up in a deposition.
Fireplaces and surrounds
Modest, and falling
Not a safety call — a commercial one. Four salvage yards within an hour do this properly with showrooms, and we would be a worse version of them. Left alone deliberately, and it will keep showing as a demand-short category for ever.
Nothing on this screen is enforced by the listing system. A seller can put a beam up without a source building today, and about one a week does — they are taken down by a person, and the fact that it is manual is the reason this screen exists rather than a reason to automate it and stop looking.