New: More Precise Results with Unit-Level Geocoding and Match Type

"300 Lee Road 669, Lot 10, Auburn, AL" and "300 Lee Road 669, Lot 11, Auburn, AL" might appear to be the same location on the surface, but at the ground level, they aren't—they have different geographic locations.

As of API v1.11, Geocodio returns distinct coordinates for secondary address lines (apartments, suites, units) when the data is available. For example, if Unit 1 and Unit 200 are located within a mobile home park, they will have different geographic locations. Geocodio will now return the precise coordinates for each unit, not the building or mobile home park’s parcel centroid.

Along with unit-level geocoding, we’ve also launched a new match_type field that provides more transparency into how coordinates are determined for every geocoding result (not just unit-level results).

Why Unit-Level Geocoding Matters

For a single-structure condo building, the difference between a building centroid and a unit location might be negligible. But many properties with units aren't single buildings.

Garden-style apartment communities can span dozens of buildings across several acres. Mobile home parks may have hundreds of units spread across a large site. Office parks and corporate campuses house tenants in separate structures that share a single street address.

In all of these cases, a single set of coordinates for the street address doesn't capture meaningful differences in where people and businesses are actually located. Unit-level geocoding resolves that issue.

What This Looks Like in Practice

When you geocode an address with a secondary component — an apartment number, suite, unit, lot, or similar — Geocodio now does the following:

Unit-Level Forward Geocoding

For forward geocoding, Geocodio’s engine:

1. Geocodes the primary address
2. Checks its unit database for coordinates specific to that exact secondary address line
3. Returns both unit-level coordinates and the standard rooftop-level result (if a match is found)

Unit-Level Reverse Geocoding

For reverse geocoding, after finding a rooftop-level match, Geocodio’s engine:

1. Checks whether any known units are within 50 meters of your input coordinates
2. If so, returns a result with the specific unit information (closest unit within 50m)
3. Skips unit enhancement if the unit’s coordinates match the base address, to prevent coordinate duplication

In both cases, you also get a new match_type field that tells you exactly what kind of coordinate match you received: a building centroid, parcel centroid, or a unit-level match. We intentionally did not modify the existing accuracy_type field in order to keep changes to results backward-compatible.

The New Match Type Field

Geocodio has always returned an accuracy_type with every result (such as rooftop, range_interpolation, or street_center). But accuracy_type doesn't tell you everything about how the coordinates were derived.

For example, two results might both have an accuracy_type of rooftop, but one could be placed at the center of a building footprint and the other, at the center of a property parcel. Depending on your use case, that distinction might matter, especially for large parcels where the building and parcel centroids can be meaningfully far apart.

The new match_type field is meant to fill that gap:

• building_centroid: Coordinates derived from a building footprint centroid. Pairs with rooftop and nearest_rooftop_match accuracy types

• parcel_centroid: Coordinates derived from a property parcel centroid. Pairs with rooftop and nearest_rooftop_match accuracy types

• unit: Unit-level coordinates from secondary address line geocoding. The result has been matched to a specific apartment, suite, or unit within a building

• null: No specific match type information is available. This can apply to any accuracy type, including rooftop results where the coordinate source type is not known, as well as range_interpolation, street_center, place, and other result types

We intentionally kept accuracy_type unchanged. If you have existing workflows that filter or sort by accuracy_type, they'll continue to work exactly as before. Use match_type when you want the extra granularity, and ignore it when you don't.

Stable Address Keys, Extended

Geocodio's stable address keys, the persistent identifiers included with every geocoding result, also support unit-level precision. When a secondary address line is present, a unit suffix is appended to the key.

This means every unit gets its own unique, stable identifier, allowing you to easily differentiate between individual properties. But you can also see the connections between properties and identify which addresses are in the same complex.

Stable address keys allow you to quickly identify and reuse addresses. You can store them, use them for lookups, pass them to the Distance API, or use them to pull data appends later, all without needing to keep the original address string.

How to Use Unit-Level Geocoding

Delivery and logistics: Last-mile delivery to a 300-unit apartment complex is much different than delivery to a single-family home. Knowing which building within a complex to route a driver to can reduce delivery times and failed attempts.

Pro tip: pair this with our USPS ZIP+4 append’s “record type” field to see the building type.

Property management, real estate, and insurance: For portfolios that include multi-unit properties, unit-level geocoding provides a more accurate picture of where each unit sits within the property. This is useful for mapping, for insurance and risk assessment that requires precise location, and for data enrichment with Census or other geographic datasets.

Field and other in-home services: When dispatching a technician to "Building G, Unit 212" within a sprawling complex, it’s helpful to have coordinates that reflect the unit location, not just the general complex.

Data quality and deduplication. With stable address key extensions, you can deduplicate records at the unit level. "Apt 4," "Apartment 4," and "Unit 4" at the same street address will resolve to the same key, while "Apt 4" and "Apt 5" will be treated as distinct records.

Political and civic data: For voter outreach, canvassing, and constituent mapping, unit-level precision provides a clearer picture of where people reside within mobile home parks and other geographically-spread complexes.

Getting Started

Unit-level geocoding is automatic. When your input includes a secondary address line, Geocodio handles the rest. There are no additional parameters to set, no separate endpoints, and no extra cost.

The new match_type JSON field is returned for all API versions. To access the new column in CSV/spreadsheet results and get unit suffixes on stable address keys, use API v1.11.

For more details on the technical implementation and field behavior, check out the API documentation.

Our support team is happy to answer any questions about unit-level geocoding or any other geocoding topic. Write to us anytime!