Katie Hill's neighbor conversation about his pool sparked a $4 billion idea. Her startup Unlisted Homes just took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 as a Top 20 Startup Battlefield finalist, announcing their iOS app launch while sitting on waitlists for 5,700 homes worth $4 billion in potential transactions. It's like Zillow, but for houses that aren't for sale yet.
Katie Hill wanted her neighbor's pool. That simple desire just turned into one of the most talked-about PropTech startups at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Unlisted Homes, Hill's pre-market real estate platform, announced their iOS app launch on stage while revealing some eye-popping traction numbers.
The story started with Hill eyeing retirement dreams. "I've always imagined myself as an old lady with a big hat and big sunglasses, sipping a martini by the pool," Hill told TechCrunch. When her kids started moving out, her neighbor's smaller home with a pool looked perfect for downsizing. So she made a bold move.
"I mentioned to my neighbor one day while he was cutting his grass that if he ever wants to sell his house, I was interested in buying it," Hill explained. His response surprised her: "He lit up, and he was like, 'Are you serious? Because I'm starting to think about retirement.'"
That casual conversation revealed a massive market gap. Hill realized countless neighbors were having similar thoughts but had no way to connect before properties hit the market. The scramble of seeing a "For Sale" sign and having to react fast was all too common.
Unlisted Homes launched as the solution - essentially becoming Zillow for houses not yet on the market. Using public records from 21 million homes, the platform creates detailed property profiles with the same information you'd find on traditional listing sites. But here's the twist: every property has a waitlist.
"We put a waitlist on every single property profile, so a buyer that admires a home can add themselves to a waiting list," Hill said. When someone joins, homeowners get notified there's interest in their property. From there, they can update their listing, add information, and chat with potential buyers.
The numbers since launching the waitlist feature in June are staggering. Hill reports 5,700 homes now have active waitlists, representing approximately $4 billion in potential real estate transactions. That's not just interest - that's demonstrated buyer intent for specific properties.
Unlike traditional real estate platforms, Unlisted won't facilitate transactions directly. Instead, they're building a revenue model around ZIP code sponsorships. Real estate agents can sponsor individual ZIP codes, getting their information linked to every home in that area as the local expert. The company just signed their first mortgage company partner and plans to expand into connecting homeowners with local services like roofers and electricians.
"Our goal is to be a national platform, but at the end of the day, real estate ends up local, and so we want to connect people to those local resources," Hill explained.
The startup's funding journey reads like a mentorship success story. After hearing Kayak co-founder Paul English on the "How I Built This" podcast, Hill cold-emailed him with her pitch deck asking for technical advice. English connected her with Kayak's former chief architect Bill O'Donnell, who became both an angel investor and board member.
"They've been absolutely incredible," Hill said. "Their experience is so wild. They took [Kayak] public for $2 billion, took it back private for another $2 billion... They've seen it all."
Hill founded the company in 2022, initially working nights and weekends with one engineer. She's since raised close to $1 million from angel investors, followed by a $2.25 million round in November led by Hearst Lab, which focuses on funding early-stage companies founded by women.
The timing couldn't be better. Traditional real estate faces inventory shortages while buyers increasingly want more control over their home search process. By creating a pre-market layer, Unlisted potentially solves both problems - giving buyers early access while helping sellers gauge interest before committing to list.
The iOS app launch represents a key milestone for user engagement. Mobile-first property searching has become the norm, and having waitlist notifications push to phones could significantly increase platform stickiness and transaction velocity.
Hill's neighbor conversation just proved that the best startup ideas often come from personal pain points. With $4 billion in transaction interest already queued up and a proven team behind them, Unlisted Homes is positioning itself to capture a slice of the massive real estate market by getting there first. The real test will be converting waitlist interest into actual transactions as homeowners decide to sell. But if Hill gets her poolside retirement home out of the deal, that might just be the perfect product validation story.
