Appfolio Property Manager

The world of property management industry has its own specific needs, like any other market. Expanding the business is followed by many hiccups, and what you need is a solid management system and marketing strategy that gets you to stand out from the sea of other companies. Collecting the rent, checking out the future tenants, handling the emergencies – all of these tasks are taking time, paper and consequently money. Can it be done more efficiently? One of the possible solutions for everything aforementioned is Software as a Service (SaaS): and here we present you AppFolio.

Introduction

California-headquartered AppFolio Inc. is the developer standing behind AppFolio Property Manager, cloud-based software which is used by around 10 thousand customers at the moment. Available in both desktop and mobile version (Android and iPhone), it is suitable for small business that tend to evolve to mid-sized, as well as start-ups and various agencies. Depending on your niche market, you can choose between portfolios named multifamily, single family and mixed real estate. Generally speaking, the features available can be divided into three major groups: management, marketing and accounting. Whether you are in student housing, real estate or commercial property management, a set of features tailored for the specifics of your company is also available. Managementconsists of several modules: Owner Portal in which the paperwork – work orders and owner statements, e.g. – are handled in electronic version, then features concerning rent, such as online collecting and comparison with others in the market, 24/7 property management answering services to take care of any unexpected inconvenience, and so on. The accounting part is just what one would expect: standard and customized reports given in variety of formats for further use, automatic review of financial transactions in order to discover possible discrepancies, and delivering payments to owners via ACH (Automated Clearing House). All of these have one common trait: reduction of printing and mailing costs. As for the marketing section, the diverse offer of design schemes for specialized property management website is the first and foremost option you can employ. Its functionalities are several, since except for the obvious advertising part, there is the possibility of posting new vacancies or updating the status of the current ones, as well as the online payment option for the residents. Of course, the website is fully compatible with the core AppFolio Property Manager. Secondly, the vacancy ads: except making it visible on your website, you can simultaneously post it on the other listed sites. Basic search engine optimization (SEO), integration with social media and setting up the mobile site and blog are also part of the deal. Monitoring the success of your efforts put in marketing is centralized and it follows all of the segments mentioned.

Reviews overview

With the quite high rating at softwareadvice.com (4.1 out of 5) comes the expected sorts of comments: positive on average and generally approving of AppFolio Property Manager. There is an agreement of the product being user-friendly with intuitive interface, straightforward once when configured, and with a good price/performance ratio – although the minimum monthly rate ($200 at the moment) is perceived as quite high. Despite the latter simple use, the setup phase is a different story, as many were unacceptably time-consuming in order to make everything function as desired. SMS communication with residents turns out to be quite pleasing to both sides, as it is effective and independent of being online. Depending on the customer’s needs, 24 hours for an answer from the support team can be perceived both as satisfyingly quick, and just too lengthy. The interconnection between reports and the accounting journal has left most of the users satisfied, as it can be used to search through entry history and quickly track any data potentially causing issues.

Want to know more? Check out AppFolio Property Manager reviews on DiscoverCloud!