Katie Hill’s dream residence isn’t available on the market — however at some point, it is going to be, and he or she needs dibs. That, and a little bit of neighborly envy, is how she received the concept for her startup, Unlisted Properties, which is a Prime 20 Startup Battlefield finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
“I’ve at all times imagined myself as an previous woman with an enormous hat and large sun shades, sipping a martini by the pool,” mentioned Hill, a longtime entrepreneur. As her kids develop into adults and transfer away from residence, her neighbor’s lot throughout the road appears excellent: It’s a smaller residence that’s excellent for downsizing, however extra importantly, it has a pool.
“I discussed to my neighbor at some point whereas he was chopping his grass that if he ever needs to promote his home, I used to be curious about shopping for it, which I knew was form of a daring transfer, however I don’t know, I used to be possessed to do it,” she informed TechCrunch. “He lit up, and he was like, ‘Are you critical? As a result of I’m beginning to consider retirement.’”
An informal dialog become one thing doubtlessly life-changing; Hill and her neighbor determined that when he lastly places the home available on the market, she’s going to get a proper of first refusal, getting her one step nearer to her dream poolside retirement.
“I’m not likely out there to purchase a home, and he’s not likely out there to promote a home, however we had been having a fairly significant dialog a few future transaction,” she mentioned. “I felt a way of aid that I used to be going to listen to from him earlier than I drove residence from the grocery retailer and noticed an indication within the entrance yard and needed to scramble, so I used to be considering, what number of different individuals up and down the block are considering the identical factor?”
Unlisted is like Zillow, however for homes that aren’t but available on the market — beforehand, this was an online platform solely, however the firm introduced onstage at Disrupt that it’s launching an iOS app. Utilizing public information of 21 million properties, Unlisted created “profiles” for every property, offering the identical form of info that you’d discover on another actual property listings web site.
“We put a waitlist on each single property profile, so a purchaser that admires a house can add themselves to a ready listing, after which what they’re doing is certainly expressing curiosity in a property,” Hill mentioned. “We notify the house owner that there’s a waitlist for his or her residence and drive them again to the location.”
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From there, owners can replace the itemizing of their residence, add extra info, and chat with the individuals on the waitlist.
Unlisted doesn’t plan to facilitate actual property transactions by way of the platform, because the assets for these transactions exist already. Somewhat, Unlisted will promote sponsorships on particular person ZIP codes to actual property brokers, whose info can be linked to each residence in that ZIP code as a neighborhood skilled. Later, the corporate hopes to attach native owners with assets {that a} house owner may want, like roofers or electricians.
“Our purpose is to be a nationwide platform, however on the finish of the day, actual property finally ends up native, and so we wish to join individuals to these native assets,” she mentioned. “Up to now, most of these have been actual property brokers … We simply had our first mortgage firm be part of.”
In June, Unlisted launched the waitlist characteristic, which Hill says has generated waitlists for five,700 properties, or about $4 billion value of potential actual property transactions.
“One of many actually necessary elements of getting this enterprise off the bottom was the mentorship that I’ve acquired,” Hill mentioned.
After listening to Kayak co-founder Paul English inform his story on an episode of the podcast How I Constructed This, she emailed him an early pitch deck and requested if he knew somebody she might discuss to for technical help. English was intrigued sufficient that he related her with Kayak’s former chief architect, Invoice O’Donnell, who grew to become an angel investor and board member for Unlisted.
“They’ve been completely unbelievable,” she mentioned. “Their expertise is so wild. They took [Kayak] public for $2 billion, took it again personal for an additional $2 billion … They’ve seen all of it.”
Hill based the corporate in 2022, devoting nights and weekends with one different engineer. Over time, Hill was capable of make the corporate her full-time job, elevating near $1 million from angel buyers. Final November, she raised one other $2.25 million led by HearstLab, which funds early-stage firms based by ladies.
If you wish to study from Unlisted firsthand, and see dozens of further pitches, attend beneficial workshops, and make the connections that drive enterprise outcomes, head right here to study extra about this 12 months’s Disrupt, held this week in San Francisco.
