Real-time unit-level data integrating property attributes with sales, listing, and rental events in a single, clean response
NOTE
Property-level data is a premium feature available only to starter or enterprise tier customers. To access it, upgrade your account on your API dashboard.
This API represents the first-ever housing API experience that lets you analyze all housing events across the property lifecycle - sales, listings, and rentals - at the unit level.
We are focused on creating the best API experience for accessing this data at scale. If you have questions, suggestions, or feedback, please post on our forum or email us at [email protected].
Overview
Prior to Parcl Labs, property-level data was scattered across siloed, incompatible sources. No single provider offered complete coverage of markets and housing events. This made it difficult to track a unit's history across sales, listings, and rentals without extensive data aggregation and engineering efforts.
Parcl Labs solves this problem. We've integrated data from many sales, listing, and rental sources to create comprehensive unit-level histories covering the entire property lifecycle. Just as we use parcl_ids for our unique market-level indexing, at the unit level we use parcl_property_ids. This indexing system ties all housing events to a specific property.
Our approach offers:
- Clean event histories for every U.S. residential unit
- Daily updates
- An intuitive API that lets you precisely select the units you want to analyze
Parcl Labs’ property-level endpoints make this data accessible at the most granular level: the individual unit.
Property Data Coverage
| Category | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Property Types | ✅ Single Family ✅ Townhouses ✅ Condos ✅ Other |
| Markets | 🇺🇸 All US Markets |
| Housing Events | Granular events captured at each stage of the property lifecycle, indexed at the unit level: ✅ Sales → Listed for Sale, Listing Removed, Other, Pending Sale, Price Change, Sold, Relisted ✅ For Sale Listings → Listed for Sale, Listing Removed, Other, Pending Sale, Price Change, Relisted ✅ Rentals → Listed for Rent, Price Change, Delisted for Rent Property and ownership insights at the event: 🏛️ Investor and True Entity Ownership 🏗️ New Construction Status |
| Property Attributes | Accurate and standardized attributes about the property’s location and physical details: 📍 Location Details → Address, Unit, City, State, ZIP5, Latitude, Longitude 🏠 Property Attributes → Property Type, Bedrooms, Bathrooms, Square Footage, Year Built |
| Refresh Frequency | ✅ Daily |
| History | January 2010-Current |
Available endpoints
Gets a list of properties based on user-defined search parameters. Each property in the response includes a unique <parcl_property_id>, location detail, physical attributes, and current ownership insights. The <parcl_property_id> is key for navigating the Parcl Labs API, serving as the core mechanism for retrieving detailed property-level information in other property endpoints.
Example Queries:
- Get all units with 3BR in zip code 12345
- Get all units currently owned by Invitation Homes in the Atlanta MSA that were built after 2020
- Get all new construction-related properties in Austin
Example Response:
Example JSON for a property returned by Property Search endpoint
Gets unit-level properties and their housing event history, including sales, listings, and rentals. The response includes detailed property information and historical event data for each specified property. A maximum of 1000 parcl_property_ids can be requested in a single POST request.
Example Queries:
- Analyze current listings in Tampa to understand price cutting activity, using listing and price cut events to aggregate and understand trends.
- Compare performance of Home Partners portfolio acquired pre and post 2022, using property data to assess metrics like vacancy rates, rental rates, and yield across different acquisition periods.
Example JSON for events returned by Property Event History endpoint
NOTE: The new Property Search endpoint is replacing Property Market Search (property search v1), which will be deprecated in September 2024. Please reference the 0.16.0 changelog for more information.
Prerequisites
To use the Parcl Labs property-level API, you need:
- An API key (sign up or login here)
- Starter tier access (learn more here and upgrade via your API dashboard)
The property-level APIs are a premium offering available only to starter and enterprise tier customers.
How to retrieve property-level data
We recommend the following workflow to efficiently retrieve and manage property-level data:
- Query the Property Market Search endpoint to get a list of properties
- Define search parameters:
- Market: Use parcl_id (available via the Search Markets Endpoint)
- Buy box criteria: Specify physical attributes of the property (if applicable)
- Owner criteria (if applicable)
- Execute the API call using these parameters
- Response includes all properties meeting the criteria within the specified market
- Define search parameters:
- Analyze the Property Market Search response for current property data
- Each result contains:
- parcl_property_id (unique identifier for the unit)
- Current property location, attributes, and metadata
- This search result itself is valuable as it provides a snapshot of all units within the specified markets at their current state
- Each result contains:
- Review the Property Market Search response for event history availability
- Assess available event history information for each property
- Understand the type and quantity of event data available
- Determine which properties warrant further investigation
- Use the Property Events endpoint to retrieve detailed event data
- Post desired parcl_property_ids (identified from search) to this endpoint
- Specify parameters:
- Event types (e.g., sales only, all events)
- Timeframe (default: January 1, 2010 onwards, customizable)
- Response includes integrated sales, listing, and rental histories for specified properties
How credits work for unit level data
Parcl Labs uses a credit-based consumption model for its API, rather than an API call-based model. If you're not familiar with our credit system, please read our credits overview guide.
It's important to understand:
- For Property Search (GET), each property returned = 1 credit.
- For Property Event History (POST), each event = 1 credit. Total credits used = Number of properties requested × Number of events per property
We've introduced new features to help with efficient credit management at the unit level:
- The new Property Search endpoint now includes flags to indicate whether you can expect sales, listings, and/or rental events in the currently available history (2010 - present). We've also added a limit parameter to explicitly control how many units are returned in the response
- It also provides the number of events for each property (2010 - present)
These additions allow you to proactively estimate your credit consumption before pulling data.
Example:
- If you search for properties and receive 100 unique property results: 100 credits
- If you then request event history for these 100 properties, and each has an average of 5 events: Property Event History: 100 properties × 5 events = 500 credits
Property-Level Roadmap
The current version of the property-level API represents a subset of our unit-level data in terms of fields and historical coverage. We will work intentionally to expand these features over time.
Keep an eye out for these upcoming enhancements:
- Extended historical data
- Additional property and event fields
- Ability to search units by additional operators (i.e., inventory search)
- Capability to search units by address
Our team is focused on creating the best possible API developer and analytics experience for property data. If you have questions, feedback, or ideas, please post on our community forum or email us at [email protected].