---
title: "Situs Address vs Owner Mailing Address: What’s the Difference? | Realie"
description: "What a situs address is, how it differs from the owner’s mailing address, why the two often differ, how to read owner occupancy, and where each address sits in Realie’s property records."
canonical: https://www.realie.ai/info/situs-address-vs-owner-mailing-address
---

# What is the difference between a property’s situs address and the owner’s mailing address?

By Realie · Published 2026-11-13

## Quick Answer

A situs address is where a property physically sits: its street address. The owner’s mailing address is where the county sends the owner’s correspondence about the property, and it can be the same house, another home, an office, a registered agent or a PO box. Realie returns both from county public records: situs in propertyLocation, mailing in propertyIdentification.currentOwner.

[Get a Realie API key](https://app.realie.ai/developer)

### Summary

A county property record carries two addresses that are easy to mix up. The situs address says where the parcel is; the owner mailing address says where the owner of record receives mail about it. They match when an owner lives in the home and differ for rentals, second homes, land, and properties held by LLCs and trusts. This page explains both, shows where each one sits in Realie’s nested v3 and flat records, what the v3 ownerOccupied flag adds, and how to read the two addresses for property research.

## Situs address vs. owner mailing address

Situs is the physical location of a property; county assessors also call it the site address. The owner mailing address is the address the county sends the owner’s correspondence to.

They are separate fields because they answer different questions: where the parcel is, and where its owner of record gets mail. Some parcels, often rural or vacant land, have no assigned street address at all, but they still have an owner with a mailing address.

## Where each address sits in a Realie record

In the nested v3 record, propertyLocation holds the physical (situs) address, and the owner’s mailing address sits in propertyIdentification.currentOwner, beside the owner of record. The flat, v2-compatible shape carries the same two addresses under flat field names.

propertyLocation also carries USPS-normalized forms of the situs address, such as addressFullUSPS, and the USPS carrier route for it in siteCarrierRoute.

**Situs and owner mailing address fields, nested v3 and flat**

| Part of the address | Situs: v3 propertyLocation / flat | Owner mailing: v3 currentOwner / flat |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Street line | address / address | ownerStreet / ownerAddressLine1 (alias mailerAddress) |
| Full address | fullAddress / addressFull | ownerFullAddress / ownerAddressFull |
| City | city / city | ownerCity / ownerCity (alias mailingCity) |
| State | state / state | ownerState / ownerState (alias mailingState) |
| ZIP code | zipCode / zipCode | ownerZipCode / ownerZipCode (alias mailingZip5) |
| ZIP+4 | zipCodePlusFour / zipCodePlusFour | ownerZipCodePlusFour / ownerZipCodePlusFour (alias mailingZip4) |

The v3 owner fields sit under propertyIdentification.currentOwner. Field names from Realie’s v3 and flat property data schemas, checked November 13, 2026.

## Why the owner’s mailing address differs from the property address

The owner does not live there. The property is a rental, a second home, vacant land or a building the owner uses for business, so mail goes to where the owner is.

The owner is an entity. Properties held by LLCs, trusts and estates often list an office, a manager or a registered agent. [Where can I get property ownership data?](https://www.realie.ai/info/property-ownership-data) explains the owner of record versus the beneficial owner.

The owner prefers another address, such as a PO box. Or the record has not caught up: after a sale, the assessment roll can show the previous owner and address until the county’s next update, while recorded transfers in salesHistory show the change sooner.

## Is the owner living there? Reading ownerOccupied

The nested v3 record has a boolean, ownerOccupied, in currentOwner: whether the owner of record occupies the property, as the source feed reports it. It is present only where the feed supplies it, and the flat shape does not document it.

Comparing the two addresses is a hint, not proof. A matching mailing address suggests the owner lives there, and a different one does not rule it out: an owner can use a PO box, or an entity can hold a home that its principal lives in.

Exemptions are another public-record signal. valuationInformation.exemptions[] lists exemption types such as Homestead, and in Texas, for example, the general residence homestead exemption requires the home to be the owner’s principal residence.

## Looking up a property by its situs address

Address lookups search the situs address. Send the street line and the state, plus the county if you have it (the city is accepted only together with the county); the response is that parcel’s record, with the owner’s mailing address inside it.

```bash
curl -H "Authorization: YOUR_API_KEY" "https://app.realie.ai/api/public/property/address/?state=TX&county=TRAVIS&address=504%20LAVACA%20ST"
```

The CLI runs the same lookup with realie lookup, and the MCP server with its address_lookup tool.

```bash
realie lookup --address "504 LAVACA ST" --state TX --county TRAVIS --json
```

The address parameter takes the street line only, without city, state or ZIP. For a parcel with no situs address, look it up by parcel ID instead; [What is an APN?](https://www.realie.ai/info/what-is-an-apn) explains how.

Owner names and mailing addresses in Realie come from public records kept by county assessors and recorders, for property research, valuation and collateral research, not for locating individuals. Realie does not provide owner phone numbers, email addresses or skip tracing.

## Sources

- [Realie v3 property data schema (propertyLocation, currentOwner)](https://docs.realie.ai/api-reference/v3/property-data-schema)
- [Realie flat property data schema (address and owner fields)](https://docs.realie.ai/api-reference/property-data-schema)
- [Realie Address Lookup (v3 API reference)](https://docs.realie.ai/api-reference/v3/property/address-lookup)
- [Realie Property Search (includeUnassignedAddress)](https://docs.realie.ai/api-reference/v3/property/property-search)
- [Realie CLI](https://docs.realie.ai/realie-cli)
- [Realie Privacy Policy, section 17: where property owner information comes from](https://www.realie.ai/privacy#property-owner-information)
- [Maricopa County Assessor’s Office glossary: situs and site address](https://mcassessor.maricopa.gov/glossary/S)
- [Maricopa County Assessor’s Office glossary: mailing address](https://mcassessor.maricopa.gov/glossary/M/)
- [Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts: property tax exemptions](https://comptroller.texas.gov/taxes/property-tax/exemptions/)

## Frequently asked questions

### What is a situs address?

The physical location of a property, usually its street address; assessors also call it the site address. In Realie’s nested v3 record it is propertyLocation; in the flat shape it is address, city, state and zipCode.

### Why is the owner’s mailing address different from the property address?

Usually because the owner gets mail somewhere else: the property is a rental, a second home or land, the owner is an LLC or trust that uses an office or registered agent, the owner uses a PO box, or the record has not caught up after a sale.

### How can I tell if a property is owner-occupied?

Check ownerOccupied in the nested v3 record where the source supplies it, compare the situs and mailing addresses, and look for a homestead exemption in valuationInformation.exemptions[]. Each is a signal, not proof.

### Can a property have no situs address?

Yes. Some parcels, often rural or vacant land, have no assigned street address. Property search skips them unless you pass includeUnassignedAddress=true, and you can look one up by parcel ID.

### Which address does an address lookup use?

The situs address. Send the property’s street line and state to the address endpoint, run realie lookup in the CLI, or call address_lookup over MCP; the owner’s mailing address comes back inside the record.

### Does Realie include the owner’s phone number or email?

No. Realie returns the owner of record and the owner mailing address as county public records publish them, for property research. It does not provide phone numbers, email addresses or skip tracing.

## Related Questions

- [Where can I get property ownership data?](https://www.realie.ai/info/property-ownership-data)
- [Where can I find the owner of record and LLC entity behind a property?](https://www.realie.ai/info/where-to-find-property-owner-and-llc-entity-data)
- [What is an APN (assessor’s parcel number), and how do I look up a property by APN?](https://www.realie.ai/info/what-is-an-apn)
- [How do I query county parcel data by API?](https://www.realie.ai/info/how-to-query-county-parcel-data-by-api)
- [What do property land use codes mean, and how are they standardized across counties?](https://www.realie.ai/info/what-are-land-use-codes)
- [What are the types of deeds in property records (warranty, grant, quitclaim and others)?](https://www.realie.ai/info/types-of-deeds-in-property-records)