Unlisted connects homeowners with potential buyers before they list their homes for sale and is part of TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
Unlisted connects homeowners with potential buyers before they list their homes for sale and is part of TechCrunch Disrupt 2025
By Amanda Silberling | Published: 2025-10-28 22:15:00 | Source: TechCrunch
Katie Hill’s dream home isn’t on the market – but it will be on the market one day, and she wants the rewards. That, plus a little neighbor envy, is why she got the idea for her startup, Unlisted Homes, which was a Top 20 finalist in TechCrunch Disrupt 2025’s Startup Battlefield competition.
“I always pictured myself as an old lady wearing a big hat and big sunglasses, drinking a martini by the pool,” said Hill, the veteran businessman. As her children grow into adults and move away from home, her neighbor’s lot across the street seems perfect: a smaller house perfect for downsizing, but more importantly, it has a pool.
“I mentioned to my neighbor one day while he was cutting his lawn that if he wanted to sell his house, I was interested in buying it, which I knew was kind of a bold move, but I don’t know, I was obsessed with doing it,” she told TechCrunch. “He lit up and said, ‘Are you serious?’ Because I’m starting to think about retirement
A casual conversation turned into something potentially life-changing; Hill and her neighbor decided that when the house finally went on the market, she would get the right of first refusal, bringing her one step closer to her dream poolside retirement.
“I’m not really in the market to buy a house, and he’s not really in the market to sell a house, but we were having a very meaningful conversation about a future deal,” she said. “I was relieved that I was going to hear from him before I drove home from the grocery store and saw a sign in the front yard and had to scramble, so I was thinking, ‘How many other people up and down the block are thinking the same thing?’
Unlisted is like Zillow, but for homes that aren’t on the market yet — previously, this was a web-only platform, but the company announced on stage at Disrupt that it’s launching an iOS app. Using the public records of 21 million homes, Unlisted has created “profiles” for each property, providing the same type of information you would find on any other real estate listing site.
“We put a waitlist on every real estate profile, so a buyer who likes the home can add themselves to the waitlist, so what they’re doing is of course expressing their interest in the property,” Hill said. “We notify the homeowner that there is a waiting list for their home and bring them back to the site.”
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From there, homeowners can update their home listing, add more information, and chat with people on the waiting list.
Unlisted does not plan to facilitate real estate transactions through the Platform, as the resources necessary for such transactions already exist. Instead, Unlisted will sell sponsorships on individual zip codes to real estate agents, whose information will be linked to each home in that zip code as a local expert. Later, the company hopes to connect local homeowners with resources the homeowner may need, such as roofers or electricians.
“Our goal is to be a national platform, but at the end of the day, real estate is local, so we want to connect people to those local resources,” she said. “So far, most of those have been real estate agents…our first mortgage company has just come on board.”
In June, Unlisted launched a waiting list feature, which Hill says has generated waiting lists for 5,700 homes, or about $4 billion in potential real estate transactions.
“One of the really important components of starting this business was the mentorship I received,” Hill said.
After listening to Kayak co-founder Paul English tell his story on an episode of the How I Built This podcast, she emailed him an early pitch and asked if he knew someone she could talk to for technical help. English was intrigued enough that he connected her with Kayak’s former chief architect, Bill O’Donnell, who became an angel investor and board member at Unlisted.
“They were absolutely amazing,” she said. “Their experience is so wild.” They took Kayak public for $2 billion, brought it back private for another $2 billion…they saw it all.
Hill founded the company in 2022, dedicating nights and weekends with another engineer. Over time, Hill was able to make the company her full-time job, raising nearly $1 million from angel investors. Last November, she said He grew up Another $2.25 million was led by HearstLab, which funds early-stage companies founded by women.
If you want to learn from Unlisted first-hand, experience dozens of additional presentations, attend valuable workshops, and make connections that drive business results, Head here to learn more about this year’s DisruptWhich was held this week in San Francisco.
(Tags for translation)Startup Battlefield
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