The house you want isn’t for sale. Get in line.

Katie Hill wanted the house across the street. During the pandemic, when public pools closed, she noticed its little swimming pool. One day, while the owner was mowing, she told him she would be interested if he ever sold. He was thinking about retirement. Neither person was ready for a transaction. Both were relieved to have the conversation.

That exchange became the premise of UNLISTED, the Dayton company Hill founded in 2022. Real estate had supplied plenty of tools for announcing a sale. She saw room for something earlier: a way to discover whether two people’s future plans might fit together. A lawn mower happened to provide the introduction. Software could make the introduction less dependent on coincidence.

A button for “someday”

UNLISTED builds searchable home profiles from public records. Its current website describes coverage of more than 121 million U.S. properties. These records provide a starting point before an owner has joined. Buyers can find a particular address and register interest through its waitlist. Owners can claim their profile and choose whether to engage.

The useful distinction is between a home and a home available to buy. UNLISTED makes the former discoverable without pretending it has secured the latter. Joining a waitlist gives an owner information. It gives a buyer a possible opening. Nobody has accepted an offer, promised a showing or granted a place at the front of a legally binding queue.

For a buyer attached to one block, that opening may be worth having. For an owner contemplating retirement, it may make a distant move easier to imagine. Their schedules can emerge before either side commits. The product gives an ordinary sentence - “Let me know if you ever sell” - a place to persist.

The mailbox still has a job

An online profile cannot make an absent homeowner log in. UNLISTED’s answer includes physical mail. When someone joins a waitlist for an unclaimed property, the company says it sends the owner a mailer inviting them onto the platform. A claimed property receives an email notification instead. The last stretch between database and conversation can be wonderfully analog.

There is history behind that choice. By March 2025, the Polsky Center reported that UNLISTED had sent more than 2,000 buyer outreach packages. It described a company-reported $160 million private-sales pipeline. Pipeline is prospective business. It should never be read as money UNLISTED earned, or as proof that every interested owner sold.

Today’s product also reverses the search through anonymous “In Search Of” requests. Buyers describe their desired location, budget and features; other people can suggest homes. Together, these tools make demand visible beyond a succession of listing alerts. A homeowner can learn that someone wants something quite specific before deciding to offer it.

The people paying for patience

The pricing has changed. The seed announcement described nominal buyer fees for starting homeowner conversations. The current consumer offer is free, including waitlists and notification mailers. Professional sponsors support it. That difference matters to anyone reading an older description and wondering what clicking the button will cost.

Agents can pay to become the designated expert for a ZIP code. The current agent page also offers a collaborator option. ZIP sponsors receive placement across properties in their territory and activity reports; collaborators can connect with past clients’ properties. Pricing requires an application. The homepage separately advertises a home-services business offering at $99 a year.

UNLISTED’s business depends on professionals finding value in attention that arrives before a commission opportunity. It does not take a transaction commission itself. As Hill put it in the funding announcement:

“We’re not a brokerage, we stay out of the transaction and we don’t take commission.”

Katie Hill, founder & CEO

That leaves agents with their familiar work when a sale becomes real. It also offers an explanation for the company’s market position: an earlier conversation can feed the existing industry. A buyer can still use listing portals, and an owner can still choose a public listing. UNLISTED is asking for attention during the quieter interval.

The name needed explaining

The quiet interval is easily mistaken for a private listing network. Hill has repeatedly addressed that confusion in interviews. Her homes are often simply not for sale. The distinction sounds small until an agent hears the name and assumes the platform intends to bypass them. Here, explaining the category is part of selling the product.

The company’s resources have grown around that task. Entrepreneurs’ Center says Hill first raised $300,000 through EC Angels to build and test the platform. UNLISTED won a $100,000 HearstLab investment through its April 2024 pitch competition, then announced a $2.25 million seed round at year-end, led by HearstLab with VC 414 and StageNext participating.

Hearst Newspapers also became a product and commercial partner. UNLISTED’s own team combines engineering and design with industry advisers, including agent adviser Melanie Hayes and technology adviser Bill O’Donnell. The expertise needed here spans records, interfaces, local relationships and distribution. A database alone supplies only one piece.

Useful interest has limits

The practical lesson is easy to copy: make future intent easy to express, and let the other person answer on their own schedule. A homeowner can update a profile before contemplating a move. An agent can discuss timing with a past client before a listing appointment. Neither action requires inventing urgency.

Patience remains a condition of the product. An owner may never respond. A public record may be stale. An interested buyer may discover that the eventual price is unreachable. Anyone who needs keys next month needs options beyond a waitlist. UNLISTED’s opportunity begins with a willing conversation, and that conversation still requires two people.