AppFolio Property Manager

In daily use, AppFolio makes the move in process easy where we can accept online payments for move in costs, handle all lease signing electronically, convert from applicant to tenant and have them do a move in inspection.

I think if you wanted something to work with your Google accounts and never had any support request. This might be a fit. If you need something robust for anything bigger than a mom & pop out fit - in my opinion, look elsewhere. I think if you want something closer to enterprise level, flee from AppFolio Property Manager.

The AppFolio Property Manager App is user friendly and easy to use. The receipt and recording of rents is apt as is the work order flow. When we signed up for AppFolio Property Manager we communicated to every point of contact from the sales agent to the implementation team, that our revenue model stems from marking up bills and services 10%. Everyone told us repeatedly that this was EASILY accomplished through AppFolio Property Manager. Once we spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on implementation, we now realize that those representations were, in my opinion, false. In our old software, markups could be accomplished at the bill level (click a button for markup or discount and input the percentage). In my experience in AppFolio Property Manager, to mark up a bill or service, numerous steps are required. First you must create a work order where detailed information must be input (who creates a work order for a home-depot bill?); close the work order and then go to the work order page, select the work order and "create bill" from the work order; enter all the same detailed information plus additional information; mark up the bill and save; then go to payables, insert bank account and vendor to find the bill - then pay the bill. In my experience when entering 100 home-depot charges on the other software, we would go to vendor, select "mark up" and the percentage, then enter the 100 charges by property; save the bill and then pay it. This might take 20 minutes. In our experience in AppFolio Property Manager, for us to make our profit which enables us to stay in business and pay our AppFolio Property Manager fees, rent, payroll etc., we have to spend ALL DAY creating work orders for every separate home-depot charge and then hop through all of the other hoops and do it 99 other times. My entire office is so frustrated and we cannot focus on marketing, leasing, work orders or getting new business because we are spending all day jumping through all of these hoops to achieve our mark up. In our experience, we reach out to customer service again and again and are only answered by bots. The bots are no help so our issue escalates to a real person. The person is no help and escalates the issue. Ive been told 10 times that i will receive an emailed answer to my question - but no email has arrived and our issue remains unaddressed. In our experience, we are then pointed to "suggestion boards" where there is nothing but dissatisfied AppFolio Property Manager customers who are not receiving answers to their issues. To say that we have buyers remorse is an understatement

We have 6 apartment buildings that we manage. Every month we were having to drive to each location to collect rent checks. Since using appfolio, we only have a couple of renters that still send in a paper check, the rest pay online, so we are ensuring that our renters are paying on time.

Once we have an applicant apply, the old way was to take their scanned application, review, and then pay to have a background check conducted. Now, with appfolio, we are able to have them apply, sign off on the background check, and pay their deposit all in one shot. It has allowed our property managers to focus on other property items rather than conducting background checks.

AppFolio Property Manager for our residents is phenomenal. It serves us and our residents very well as far as them having access to their portal. I find the program difficult to use from a data entry standpoint. There are many features on our end that make usage for us much more difficult.

We needed a platform that we could easily migrate our HOA into from an outside management company, but one that allowed for the majority of business to be done and maintained in a cloud based environment.

Onboarding was very thorough and allowed us to really break down the processes and make sure that we had all of the areas of management identified.

Where we struggled was in the post launch support. You have to reach out to the support team in a forum rather than by email and phone and then wait. That piece has made it a little more difficult to smoothly launch certain features like email, setting up reoccurring fees, and things that the homeowners really should see very little stumbling in from their board.

We are able to manage the move-in process from scheduling a tour to the day of move-in through AppFolio. On the management side, budgetary things are managed in this system as well. When it comes to a true tool that’s easy to use and effective in helping to manage a property--this is it! Leasing consultant performance can even be tracked easily in this system.

It is easy to use, and the tenant portal and communication with tenants works well.
Their tech support and customer service can be nonexistent at times.

AppFolio Property Manager has focused on larger PM clients for the past couple of years. In the past, circa 2014, any company willing to pay their fees would be able to get the program. They experienced more problems with smaller PMs who were growing (probably because the businesses were growing and the staff was not as seasoned), so they blocked smaller PMs in 2018 or so. This made them more profitable because the 80/20 rule was used to focus on their best, most efficient use of resources, but it limited the clients who could get the program. I think this was a mistake long term. It was short-sighted, and instead of fixing and supporting the small PM problems and helping them grow into larger PMs that could utilize the program, they just blocked anyone who was not yet their most profitable client.

If any colleague or resident asked about the system we used, I would highly recommend it. It is a huge step up from the other platform software we were using, so there are so many more features for both managers and our tenants. As a tenant, it seems they really enjoy the cleanliness of logging in, paying rent, asking for maintenance or contacting the manager. Easy and clean!

AppFolio Property Manager is great for small to medium-sized businesses (managing 300 - 1,000 units). I don't know if it would be as useful for extremely large organizations or extremely small organizations. There are so many features that we don't use (we don't currently have a need for) but I can't imagine a smaller business owner needing half of the features this software offers. As I haven't worked for a large organization that utilizes this program, I'm not sure if it would be beneficial or if it would meet all the needs of an extremely large organization (10,000+ units); therefore, I'm unable to speak on that portion.

Don't attempt to use this software for summer rentals or short-term rentals. It's impossible to handle taking security deposits for the next tenant coming in when the current tenant is still in residence.

I think it is one of the best solutions out there for the price. Cheaper solutions don't have the same features (i.e. check printing for multiple bank accounts). If you need personal support or are not overly tech-savvy, you will be better off with a higher-end product that delivers more personalized service. If you are a tech-forward organization that can figure out your needs and features on your own, then I think Appfolio is a great solution.

I can only speak for the types of properties I am currently managing, which are single-family, multi-family and small retail. AppFolio is well suited for property management of each of these. As my business grows I will be better able to determine if AppFolio will be suited for other types of property management. I feel very confident that if I have a situation arise that doesn't appear to work well with AppFolio that their development team will work to correct the problem(s).

I would recommend the program to anyone that does property management. The search features and user-friendliness of the program alone has helped functionality of our company greatly. Their support is great and replies in a timely manner. Appfolio overall has helped our company be more productive and reach more customers locally and internationally with streamlined processes that have been great time savers.

If you have only 1-5 properties to manage, AppFolio might be overkill. But once you get over 10, it becomes more valuable. If you, also, have mult-unit properties, this only increases AppFolio's value. The property management side is so detailed and complete that it is well worth dealing with an antiquated accounting system.

AppFolio Property Manager is best suited when there are multiple people who must receive a specific report related to the on-site property management of a specific asset. This is where it excels the most. However, it can be tricky to export the data sometimes for use in modeling. A lot of the tinkering with numbers must be done within the program rather than externally.