This As They Told It essay is based on a conversation with Ben Mutz, 39, a retired Air Force officer who purchased a home that was not originally for sale in Oakwood, Ohio. Mutz used Unlisted, an app that allows prospective buyers to get on a waiting list for homes not yet on the market.
This As They Told It essay is based on a conversation with Ben Mutz, 39, a retired Air Force officer who purchased a home that was not originally for sale in Oakwood, Ohio. Mutz used Unlisted, an app that allows prospective buyers to get on a waiting list for homes not yet on the market. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I recently got engaged and we’re blending families, so I’m going from a three-bedroom house to a six-bedroom house. Our community is quite small, with around 1200 homes.
There aren’t many six-bedroom houses in our neighborhood (we will have five children between my fiancée and I), so we were already working with a very limited market.
I’ve moved around quite a bit – this is my seventh duty station and I’ve probably lived in about 15 houses between those seven different stops. So I’m very familiar with the moving process, both from a rental and ownership perspective.
I rented the house I was in for two years and decided to buy it. I did the whole process without an agent and it really opened my eyes to see that there is a different way of doing things than the traditional way. There are many tools available that allow you to facilitate your own sale.
When I first heard about Unlisted, it was taking off. I thought, “Wow, this is an amazing concept.” I was able to use the platform to search and see what six-bedroom homes are available.
Mutz and his family. Courtesy of Ben Mutz
After a few months, I found the house of our dreams: it had the square meters, the size and the number of rooms. The listing had a couple of photos and an interesting story about the house and some of the history behind it. I bookmarked it and was added to the waiting list.
Then, by the grace of God and a bit of good luck, a couple of months later, someone mentioned to me that their neighbor was moving. I was like, “Oh, cool, where are they located?” They told me, I was able to cross-reference Unlisted and I said, “That’s on my list.”
I contacted 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.
I built a relationship with the owners before they decided to sell.
On the Unlisted seller side, you can claim your ownership; You can update images and add your own owner review. The owner got a review that told me, “Hey, we’re potentially open for sale.”
I developed an incredible friendship with them. Over the course of about six months, we were texting about sports, we were texting about life, we were sharing photos of our kids and our dogs. We build the connection that you traditionally don’t get in the sale of a normal home.
It was a long process, but part of the reason it took so long was that the owners weren’t retiring until June. So we agreed on a price in November, and when his retirement plans were solidified, in March I said, “Hey, we probably need to have a contract in place.”
My dad is a very skeptical man and he told me, “If you don’t have a contract, they’ll find out they can get more money and you might lose this house before you know it.”
When I approached them, they said, “Ben, we consider you family. We’re good.” And I thought, “Okay, the pressure’s off.” I don’t have to worry about losing the house. We can do it at our own pace.
Because we have developed such a friendship throughout the process, we were flexible and the closing occurred around the day of his retirement. It was a period that worked well for both of us.
Mutz’s home in Oakwood, Ohio. Courtesy of Ben Mutz
We live in a very active real estate market, where if a house comes on the market and is a good deal, it typically sells in two or three days.
I bought our house for $800,000, but it was appraised at $960,000, so I feel like we got an amazing deal.
If it had come to market, it would have sold very quickly and probably for more than we were able to negotiate.
Using Unlisted was unlike any other housing transaction
On other listing sites, you are limited by what is for sale.
Yes, you can open any house on Zillow and it will give you an overview, but you don’t know if that family moved in 20 years ago, a year ago, or if they have any intention of considering moving.
The house I bought wasn’t the only one I asked about on Unlisted. I was able to talk to a few other families there about their house, and they emailed me pictures, and some of them weren’t in our price range, or some didn’t fit from a design standpoint.
I have done traditional home sales with real estate agents where we know it will be a competitive market, so we write a personalized note so the owners see us not only as buyers, but as a family who will continue the next legacy in their home.
Mutz and his fiancee. Courtesy of Ben Mutz
The value of an interpersonal connection with a buyer and seller is always important, but Unlisted allowed us to go directly to them. Typically, your agents are the middleman and intermediary who facilitate the deals, but we were able to get to know each other very quickly and really connect on a personal level in a different way than we had through any other housing transaction.
The owners were going to retire and move out of state anyway. But it was the personal connection we made with them that helped us secure the house. They loved our story of two families coming together, and the house we moved into is over 100 years old and has a deep history.
They were really excited that we had the opportunity to live there and make it the next chapter in the house’s history.