Unlisted connects homeowners with prospective buyers before they even put their homes up for sale and is part of TechCrunch Disrupt 2025

Katie Hill’s dream home isn’t on the market — but one day, it will be, and she wants dibs That, and a bit of neighborly envy, is how he got the idea for his startup, Unlisted houseWhich is a top 20 Startup battlefield finalist TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.

“I’ve always imagined myself as an old lady with a big hat and big sunglasses, sipping a martini by the pool,” says Hill, a longtime entrepreneur. With her kids moving away from home as adults, her neighbor’s place across the street seems perfect: it’s a small house perfect for downsizing, but more importantly, it has a pool.

“I told my neighbor one day while mowing his lawn that if he ever wanted to sell his house, I’d be interested in buying it, which I knew was kind of a bold move, but I don’t know, I was able to do it,” he told TechCrunch. “He lit up, and he said, ‘Are you serious? Because I’m starting to think about retiring.’

A casual conversation turned into something potentially life-changing; Hill and his neighbor decided that when he finally put the house on the market, he would have the right of first refusal, moving him one step closer to his 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 pretty meaningful conversation about a future transaction,” he said. “I felt a sense of relief that I was going to hear from her before I drove home from the grocery store and saw a sign in the front yard and had to shrug, so I wondered, 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, it was just a web platform, but the company announced on stage at Disrupt that it’s launching an iOS app. Using public records of 21 million homes, it creates “profiles” for each property listed, providing the same information you’d find on any other real estate listing site.

“We put a waiting list on every single property profile, so a buyer who appreciates a home can add themselves to a waiting list, and then all they’re doing is expressing interest in a property,” Hill said. “We let the homeowner know there’s a waiting list for their home and take them back to the site.”

From there, homeowners can update their home listings, add more information, and chat with people on the waiting list.

It does not plan to facilitate real estate transactions through listed platforms, since the resources for those transactions already exist. Rather, Unlisted would sell sponsorships in individual zip codes to real estate agents, whose information would be linked to every home in that zip code as local experts. Next, the company hopes to connect local homeowners with resources that a homeowner might need, such as a roofer or electrician.

“Our goal is to be a national platform, but at the end of the day, real estate is local, and so we want to connect people with those local resources,” he said. “Until now, most of them were real estate agents … we joined our first mortgage company.”

In June, Unlisted launched the waitinglist feature, which Hill said created a waiting list for 5,700 homes, or about $4 billion worth of potential real estate transactions.

“One of the most important components of getting out of this business was the mentorship I received,” Hill said.

After hearing Kayak co-founder Paul English on an episode of the podcast How I Built This, he emailed him an initial pitch deck and asked if he knew anyone he could talk to for technical support. English was intrigued enough that he connected him with Kayak’s former chief architect, Bill O’Donnell, who became an angel investor and board member for the listing.

“They have been absolutely incredible,” he said. “Their experience is so wild, they take it [Kayak] Public for $2 billion, took it back private for another $2 billion … They’ve seen it all.”

Hill founded the company in 2022, spending nights and weekends with another engineer. Over time, Hill was able to turn the company into his full-time job, raising nearly $1 million from angel investors. Last November he Raised Another $2.25 million was led by HearstLab, which funds early-stage companies founded by women

If you want to learn directly from the unlisted, and watch dozens of additional pitches, attend valuable workshops, and make connections that drive business results, Go here to learn more about this year’s disruptionHeld this week in San Francisco.