# Parcel Owner Lookup — Address to Owner & Assessor Record (`malonestar/parcel-owner-lookup`) Actor

Turn street addresses into parcel IDs, owner names, mailing addresses, assessed values & coordinates from official assessor rolls (Chicago/Cook County, Philadelphia, NYC) with Census-geocoder fallback. Address-grounding primitive for AI agents, proptech & skip tracing. $0.02/lookup.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/malonestar/parcel-owner-lookup.md
- **Developed by:** [Kyle Maloney](https://apify.com/malonestar) (community)
- **Categories:** Real estate, Developer tools, Agents
- **Stats:** 1 total users, 0 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $11.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Parcel Owner Lookup — Address to Owner & Assessor Record API

Turn any US street address into a **parcel ID, owner name, owner mailing address, assessed value, property class, and coordinates** — straight from official government assessment rolls, with a US Census geocoder fallback. One address in, exactly one structured row out. **$0.02 per lookup** (pay per result).

Built as an **address-grounding primitive**: the boring-but-critical first step of property research, lead generation, skip tracing, and AI-agent real-estate workflows.

### Who it's for

- **AI agents & LLM apps** — ground a free-text address to a canonical parcel + owner before doing anything else (valuation, permits, liens, outreach). Clean, described output fields make this a chainable MCP tool.
- **Proptech developers** — add "who owns this property?" to your product without licensing a parcel-data vendor.
- **Skip tracing / real-estate lead gen** — the `owner_mailing_address` field is the pre-step for direct-mail and owner-outreach lists.
- **Title, lending & due-diligence analysts** — confirm the recorded owner and parcel ID behind an address in seconds.

### Coverage (v1 — more counties compound)

| Area | Roll | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago / Cook County, IL | Cook County Assessor Parcel Universe (Socrata) | PIN, owner/taxpayer + mailing address, class, lat/lon |
| Philadelphia, PA | OPA property roll (Carto SQL) | OPA parcel number, owner(s), mailing address, market value, category, lat/lon |
| New York City (5 boroughs) | MapPLUTO (Socrata) | BBL, owner name, total assessed value, building class, lat/lon |
| Everywhere else | US Census geocoder | Normalized address + lat/lon (`match_confidence: "geocoded"`, no parcel/owner) |

These three rolls cover ~13M people and three of the largest US property markets. More counties are added over time — each new roll is one config block.

### Example input

```json
{
  "addresses": [
    "1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL",
    "1234 Market St, Philadelphia, PA",
    "350 5th Ave, New York, NY"
  ],
  "maxResults": 10
}
```

### Example output row

```json
{
  "input_address": "1234 Market St, Philadelphia, PA",
  "matched_source": "philadelphia-opa",
  "match_confidence": "exact",
  "parcel_id": "453337700",
  "owner_name": "SEPTA",
  "owner_mailing_address": "1234 MARKET ST, PHILADELPHIA PA, 19107",
  "assessed_value": 38400000,
  "property_class": "4",
  "property_class_desc": "COMMERCIAL",
  "situs_address": "1234 MARKET ST, PHILADELPHIA, PA, 19107",
  "lat": 39.9522,
  "lon": -75.1605,
  "source_url": "https://phl.carto.com/api/v2/sql?q=..."
}
```

### Output fields

- `input_address` — your address string, echoed for joining.
- `matched_source` — `cook-county-parcel-universe` | `philadelphia-opa` | `nyc-pluto` | `census-geocoder` | null.
- `match_confidence` — `exact` (house + street matched the roll verbatim), `fuzzy` (same street with a drifted suffix — e.g. Wrigley Field is "W ADDISON **AVE**" on the Cook roll — or nearest house number on the right street), `geocoded` (coordinates only), `none` (no match; the row is still emitted — this actor **never fails on a bad address**).
- `parcel_id` — Cook 14-digit PIN / Philadelphia OPA number / NYC 10-digit BBL.
- `owner_name`, `owner_mailing_address` — owner or taxpayer of record + mailing address (mailing is null for NYC; PLUTO doesn't publish it).
- `assessed_value` — NYC total assessed value; Philadelphia OPA certified market value; **null for Cook County v1** (its parcel-universe roll carries no value column).
- `property_class`, `property_class_desc` — jurisdiction class code + readable description.
- `situs_address`, `lat`, `lon` — the roll's own address for the parcel and WGS84 coordinates.
- `source_url` — direct API link to the underlying official record for citation/re-fetch.

### How matching works

Addresses are normalized (case, punctuation, St↔Street, Ave↔Avenue, W↔West, 5th↔5↔Fifth) and routed by city/ZIP to the right roll. The matcher then tries, in order: exact house + street; nearest house number on the same street (within 100); same house with a drifted street suffix. Anything still unmatched falls back to Census geocoding, then to an honest `none` row.

### Use as an MCP tool

Every Apify actor is callable by AI agents via [mcp.apify.com](https://mcp.apify.com). This actor is designed for it: pass `addresses`, read back fully-described fields, and chain the `parcel_id` / `lat` / `lon` into other tools (permit lookups, flood/wildfire screeners, comparable sales). Ideal first hop of any property-research agent.

### FAQ

**How do I find out who owns a property by address?** Run this actor with the address; it returns the owner of record and their mailing address from the official assessor roll (Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC in v1).

**Is this legal / where does the data come from?** All sources are public, official government open-data APIs (Cook County Socrata, Philadelphia OPA via Carto, NYC Open Data, US Census). No scraping of private sites.

**What happens with an address outside Chicago/Philly/NYC?** You still get a row: the Census geocoder supplies normalized address + coordinates with `match_confidence: "geocoded"` and no parcel/owner.

**Why did my lookup come back `fuzzy`?** Assessor rolls often disagree with common usage (suffix drift, canonical lot addresses). `fuzzy` means the right street was found but not a verbatim match — check `situs_address` to verify.

**Can I look up thousands of addresses?** Yes — pass up to 5,000 per run (`maxResults`). Each address = one result = $0.02.

**How current is the data?** Live API calls at run time. Philadelphia and NYC rolls are actively maintained; the Cook County parcel-universe vintage trails the assessor's cycle.

# Actor input Schema

## `addresses` (type: `array`):

US street addresses to resolve to a parcel + owner record, one per line (e.g. '1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL'). v1 matches against the Cook County IL (Chicago), Philadelphia PA, and New York City assessment rolls; addresses outside those areas fall back to Census geocoding (lat/lon only). Every input address always yields exactly one output row — unmatched addresses come back with match\_confidence 'none'.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of addresses to process (one output row per address). Extra addresses beyond this cap are skipped.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "addresses": [
    "1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL",
    "1234 Market St, Philadelphia, PA",
    "350 5th Ave, New York, NY"
  ],
  "maxResults": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

The default dataset (one row per input address).

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "addresses": [
        "1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL",
        "1234 Market St, Philadelphia, PA",
        "350 5th Ave, New York, NY"
    ],
    "maxResults": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("malonestar/parcel-owner-lookup").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "addresses": [
        "1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL",
        "1234 Market St, Philadelphia, PA",
        "350 5th Ave, New York, NY",
    ],
    "maxResults": 10,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("malonestar/parcel-owner-lookup").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "addresses": [
    "1060 W Addison St, Chicago, IL",
    "1234 Market St, Philadelphia, PA",
    "350 5th Ave, New York, NY"
  ],
  "maxResults": 10
}' |
apify call malonestar/parcel-owner-lookup --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=malonestar/parcel-owner-lookup",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/aBYhgMtycaKn8cXMQ/builds/P7rx9uxJrUB9OkRVz/openapi.json