Buyer uses unlisted app Unlisted to purchase dream home appraised at $960,000 for $800,000

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ben Mutz, 39, a retired Air Force officer who bought a home in Oakwood, Ohio, that wasn't originally on the market. Mutz used Unlisted, an app that lets prospective buyers waitlist themselves on homes not yet listed for sale. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

A Limited Market for a Blended Family

I'm recently engaged, and we're blending families, so I'm going from a three-bedroom home to a six-bedroom home. Our community is pretty small, with about 1,200 homes.

There aren't many six-bedroom homes in our neighborhood — we'll have five kids between my fiancée and me — so we were already working with a very limited market.

I've moved quite a bit — this is my seventh duty station, and I've probably lived in about 15 houses across those seven stops. So I'm very familiar with the moving process, both from a rental and an ownership standpoint.

I rented the house I was in for two years and decided to purchase it. I did the entire process without an agent, and it really opened my eyes to see that there's a different way of doing things than the traditional way. There are a lot of tools out there that are readily available, where you can facilitate your own sale in an easier way.

Discovering Unlisted

When I first heard about Unlisted, it was getting off the ground. I thought, "Wow, this is an amazing concept." I used the platform to search and see which six-bedroom homes were available.

After a few months, I found our dream home: It had the square footage, the size, and the number of bedrooms. The listing had a couple of photos and a cool story about the home and some of its history. I favorited it and was added to the waitlist.

Then, through the grace of God and a little bit of good luck, a couple of months later, someone mentioned that their neighbor was moving. I asked, "Oh, cool, where are they located?" They told me, and I was able to cross-reference on Unlisted and said, "That's on my list."

I got in touch with the owners last fall through Unlisted, and over the course of a couple of months, we were able to execute the sale. I closed in July 2026.

Building a Relationship Before the Sale

On the seller side of Unlisted, you can claim your property, update pictures, and add your own owner evaluation. The owner had an evaluation that told me, "Hey, we're potentially open to selling."

I developed an incredible friendship with them. Over the course of about six months, we would text about sports, text about life, share photos of our kids and our dogs. We built a connection that you don't traditionally get in a normal home sale.

It was a long process, but part of the reason it took so long was that the homeowners weren't retiring until June. We agreed on a price in November, and as their retirement plans firmed up, in March, I said, "Hey, we probably need to have a contract in place."

My dad is a very skeptical man, and he said, "If you don't have a contract, they're going to find out they can get more money, and you may lose this house before you know it."

When I reached out to them, they said, "Ben, we consider you family. We are good." And I thought, "All right, the pressure's off." I didn't have to worry about losing the house. We could do it at our own pace.

Because we developed such a friendship through the process, we were flexible with the closing being around their retirement day. It was a timeframe that worked well for both of us.

An Incredible Deal

We live in a very active real estate market, where if a home comes to market and it's a good deal, it's usually sold within two or three days.

I bought our house for $800,000, but it appraised at $960,000, so I feel that we got an incredible deal.

If it had hit the market, it would have sold very quickly and probably for more than what we were able to negotiate.

How Unlisted Changed the Process

Using Unlisted was different than any other home transaction. On other listing sites, you're limited by what's out there for sale.

Yes, you can pull up any house on Zillow, and it will give you the overview, but you don't know if that family moved in 20 years ago, one year ago, or whether they have any intentions of ever considering moving.

The house I purchased was not the only one I inquired about on Unlisted. I was able to talk with a few other families about their homes, and they emailed over pictures. Some weren't within our price range, and some weren't a fit from a layout standpoint.

I've done traditional home sales with real estate agents where we know it's going to be a competitive market, so we've written a personalized note so the owners would consider our offer. But this was a completely different experience.