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Unison streamlined verified address normalization with Smarty
Products used
US Address Verification
US Address Autocomplete
At a glance
Challenge
Manually blending and validating addresses from various data sources was costing too much time and causing too many errors. Unison needed a way to achieve total address data confidence while simplifying their operations.
Solution
Smarty’s US Address Verification and US Address Autocomplete can be implemented to eliminate bad address data from entering Unison databases and verify that all data is current.
Results
Unison smoothly implemented Smarty’s APIs and now experiences painless, automated address verification and standardization. This provides the added bonuses of scalability, data confidence, and improved operational efficiency.
The client: Unison
Unison is a medium-sized financial services company that offers homeowners innovative and affordable alternatives to traditional home equity loans and HELOCs. In exchange for a percentage of future home price appreciation, Unison customers can tap into the power of their home equity with zero added debt.
The company recently expanded its offerings to include a hybrid loan product that combines traditional financing with equity sharing. This allows customers who wouldn’t normally qualify for a typical HELOC to still receive the financial aid they’re looking for in the time it’s needed.
With a business model built on property investment decisions, Unison requires accurate, standardized address data to assess the value and investment risk profile of homes across the United States. Reliable and structured address data is critical for clean operations and compliance with strict industry regulations.
The challenge: Disparate address data complicating operations
Before implementing Smarty, Unison’s address management process relied on a patchwork of solutions. Team members used open-source Python libraries and other manual address normalization techniques to clean and standardize incoming addresses, a time-consuming and back-breaking endeavor.
This was especially true as their address data arrived from public records, financial aggregators, and customer-submitted forms. This approach was inefficient and inconsistent.
Their key challenges included:
Data inconsistencies: Address formats varied significantly depending on the source, including missing secondary information and inconsistent formatting and abbreviations for common address terminology.
Data linking difficulties: Since address data was the primary method for linking disparate data sets, Unison had to cope with myriad errors and duplicate addresses.
Scaling issues: As Unison’s data ingestion process expanded, their manual address normalization methods became unsustainable.
We have data coming in from all kinds of different places, and oftentimes, the address is the only way we have to link that data. Before Smarty, we were using various open-source modules to try to normalize addresses.
“We have data coming in from all kinds of different places, and oftentimes, the address is the only way we have to link that data. Before Smarty, we were using various open-source modules to try to normalize addresses,” said Chris Pomerantz, VP of Technology and Engineering at Unison.
There had to be a better way to standardize and verify the information than manual entry and verification.
The solution: Smarty’s address verification and normalization
To solve these challenges, Unison implemented Smarty’s US Address Verification and US Address Autocomplete solutions.
“The way Unison uses Smarty is to canonicalize the address and to normalize it. We basically run every address we get through Smarty to get that normalized address, then use that standardized version to link data together or complete searches,” Chris explained.
Every incoming address is standardized using Smarty’s API, ensuring consistency across all datasets and creating a structured, searchable database for their internal use. When we say every address, we mean it. Unison standardized around 51 million address lookups in just the last year!
Additionally, Smarty’s address autocomplete reduces data entry errors when customers provide their addresses on Unison’s website. The Smarty API runs automatically in the background without requiring manual intervention or checks and balances.
The results: A stable, scalable, and efficient address system
Since integrating Smarty, Unison has significantly improved the accuracy and efficiency of its address processing. They now experience:
✅ Improved data blending: Every address is processed and structured in a consistent, standardized format, reducing errors in property assessments.
✅ Operational efficiency: With fully automated address validation, Unison’s team no longer wastes time fixing address inconsistencies.
✅ Scalability: In 2024 alone, Unison processed 51 million address lookups through Smarty’s API—without a single failure.
✅ Seamless API performance: Unison’s bulk address processing runs smoothly with no slowdowns, ensuring optimal speed for their data pipelines.
“Performance has been great. The API works exactly as expected. It’s always worked perfectly. We process millions of addresses, and Smarty has never been a bottleneck,” Chris noted while chuckling. “We hammer it quite a bit.”
We hammer it quite a bit.
Why Unison Trusts Smarty
One of the biggest reasons Unison relies on Smarty is stability. The company requires an address verification solution that’s always available and consistently accurate.
“The stability that you have with your product is really valuable. It just works. We’ve never had any issues with it. It helps us to have clean data, and that’s critical for us,” Chris emphasized.
Additionally, Smarty’s documentation and ease of use made implementation simple.
“I’ve worked with a lot of different APIs, and Smarty has one of the best. It works how you’d expect, which means it was designed by actual engineers.” Chris continued, “The ability to test things out before implementing was extremely helpful.”
I’ve worked with a lot of different APIs, and Smarty has one of the best. It works how you’d expect, which means it was designed by actual engineers.
Looking ahead: Exploring additional data solutions
While Unison primarily uses Smarty for address normalization and verification, they’re now exploring Smarty’s US Property Data product to enhance their risk assessment models.
As Unison continues to refine its real estate financing solutions, Smarty remains a key partner in ensuring accurate, high-quality address data fuels their decision-making.
Conclusion
For Unison, where property data is the foundation of their business model, address accuracy is non-negotiable. Using Smarty’s address verification API has eliminated inconsistencies, improved operational efficiency, and ensured data confidence across millions of records.
Whether handling financial assessments, customer applications, or market analysis, Smarty enabled Unison to achieve a scalable, reliable, and high-performance address verification system.
Smarty helped Unison eliminate address inconsistencies and streamline their data.
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