The address autocomplete form field turns your form's address field into a search box. The lead types a few characters, picks their address from a dropdown, and the field fills in the rest. SiteStakes uses Google Places to power the suggestions, so the addresses are real, complete, and spelled correctly.

You get three benefits:

• Less typing. Most leads pick a suggestion after typing 4 or 5 characters.
• Fewer typos. Picked addresses come from Google, not from the lead's keyboard.
• Clean data. The address is split into street, city, state, and ZIP, each stored in its own field.

This article shows you the two ways to add the address autocomplete form field to a form, how to set up the Google API key, and what happens if you publish a form before adding the key.

The form builder gives you two options for adding a property address lookup field. They look similar on the page but store the data differently. Pick based on what you plan to do with the address later. You only need to make this choice once per form — the rest of the setup is the same.

The two options:

• Single Address field. This is one text input. The lead types and picks. The field stores the full address as one string, like "123 Main Street, Dallas, TX 75201". Use this when you only need the address as text — for example, a "Where should we mail the contract?" question.
• Address Block. This is five fields together: Street Address, Address Line 2, City, State, and ZIP. Autocomplete runs on the Street Address field. When the lead picks a suggestion, City, State, and ZIP fill in automatically. Each piece is saved in its own column.

For most real estate forms, use Address Block. The separate fields let you filter your leads by city or ZIP, and they're what BatchData needs to enrich the lead later.

Open your form in the form builder. In the left palette, scroll to the Address section. You'll see two items, both ready to use as a real estate address field — the single Address option and the Address Block option. Pick the one that matches the choice from the previous section and drag it into the canvas.

The fields appear with default labels and field keys. For the Address Block, the five fields stay grouped, so dragging the block to a new spot moves them all together.

Click any field to edit its label or change whether it's required. The defaults work for most forms: Street Address required, Address Line 2 optional, City, State, and ZIP required.

You don't need to flip a switch to turn autocomplete on. The form builder handles that for you. If your Google API key is set up (see the next section), the lead will see suggestions the moment they start typing.

The address autocomplete form field uses Google address autofill, which needs a Google API key. You set this up once per site, and the same key works on every form on that site. The key takes about ten minutes to create if you don't already have one. Once it's in place, autocomplete works the same way on every new form you build.

Steps:

1. Go to Integrations in your back office.
2. Find the Google Maps card and click Configure.
3. Paste your Google Cloud API key into the API Key field.
4. Save.

One key powers four Google services: Maps, Places (for autocomplete), Geocoding (for coordinates), and Street View (for the lead card thumbnail). In your Google Cloud Console, enable all four APIs on the key:

• Maps JavaScript API
• Places API
• Geocoding API
• Street View Static API

If you don't have a Google Cloud account yet, sign up at console.cloud.google.com. Google gives every account a monthly credit on their Maps Platform. For most real estate sites, the credit covers all your autocomplete usage without any charges. You add a credit card during signup, but you only get billed if you go over the free credit.

The Google Maps integration page links to Google's docs and walks you through each step.

Yes, partly. If you haven't added a Google API key, the address field still shows on your form. The lead can type and submit. The form doesn't break, and there's no error message. Submissions still land in your inbox the same way they would with a key in place — you just won't see the suggestions dropdown.

What's different without a key:

• No suggestions dropdown. The lead types the full address by hand.
• No automatic fill for the Address Block. The lead types City, State, and ZIP separately.
• No latitude or longitude saved with the submission.

This is fine for getting a form live quickly. You can add the key later. Any form already on your site will start showing autocomplete the next time someone opens it. You don't need to change anything in the form.

Our recommendation: publish your form first, then add the key during your next setup pass. Don't wait on Google Cloud to launch.

The address autocomplete form field isn't just about typing speed. The smart address field gives you clean, parsed data, and that's what lets you do more with the lead later. Once you have a submission from an Address Block, you can do all of this from the lead record without going back to the form:

• Filter your leads by city, state, or ZIP. Each piece is its own column, so "show me every seller in Dallas with a ZIP starting with 752" is a simple filter.
• Enrich the lead on demand. From the lead record, click Enrich. The platform calls BatchData using the parsed address and pulls bedrooms, bathrooms, square footage, year built, owner info, and tax records.
• Show a Street View thumbnail. The saved coordinates let the lead card display an image of the actual house.
• Show a Zestimate. Same coordinates, same idea — the lead card displays Zillow's estimated value.
• Show Walk Score. If you've set up the Walk Score integration, the lead card shows walkability, transit, and bike scores.

None of these happen automatically when the form is submitted. You trigger them from the lead record when you're ready to work the lead. That keeps your API costs low — you only pay when you decide a lead is worth looking up.

A plain text address field can't do most of this. BatchData sometimes parses a single string, but the match rate is lower. With the address autocomplete form field and Address Block, the data is structured from the start.

Not every address field needs autocomplete. There are two common cases where the single Address field is the better pick. In both, you're collecting an address but you don't need clean parsed components for any downstream work, so a plain text input is enough and a little faster to type.

The two cases:

• Mailing addresses. If you're collecting where to mail a check or a packet, you don't need parsed components. A plain text field is fine.
• International addresses. Google Places is built for US addresses. If you serve other markets, the suggestions are less useful and the parsing into US-style City/State/ZIP can break.

In both cases, use the single Address field. Autocomplete still works if Google has the address, but you won't lose anything if it doesn't.

The address autocomplete form field is one of many field types in the form builder. Use it whenever the address is something you'll act on later — pulling property data, mapping leads, filtering by city. For shorter forms where the address is just text, the simpler options still work fine.

For the full list of field types — email, phone, dropdown, radio, hidden fields, and the rest — see Form Field Types Reference. That article covers every field the form builder supports, with the rules of thumb for each one.