AppFolio Property ManagerReviews of appfolio.com

This program was very disappointing if you manage for many different residential property owners. Although the website integration is very good, the rest of our experience was not. Maybe your company is too new in the field and because of your fast rate of growth, or your employees are not properly trained. In this field we cannot wait 1-3 days for help. Clients and vendors need to be paid and do not want to wait. I've read a lot of positive reviews of customer service, which puzzles me. I bet they are not past the first 60 day period yet , when help only comes by sending an email request. I bet they have not tried to make their old software reconcile(and reconcile owner reserves and fees) with the first month of Appfolio yet. I bet they have not tried to exit a tenant and return a partial security deposit with in the state deadline using your programs SODA form, and then not been able to get timely help. Without getting into too much detail, as I did at another review site, Appfolios' customer support for existing clients is your weakest link. Slow customer support was ultimately the deciding reason we gave up, and decided to start over with another software program. The next problem, is that your sales team, gives false information to clients considering Appfolio--Either because they will say anything to get the account, or because of a lack of knowledge in property management and Appfolio. Since I found many other reviews citing this same issue in the past 2 years, the company leadership must permit it. Not cool! These two issues cost us thousands of dollars in wasted Appfolio fees, employee wages, and my personal time lost that should have been spent getting new clients. Switching to Appfolio was a colossal mistake for our company. We still had to keep separate lists on whiteboards, keep separate photo files, separate email documentation per unit and client, separate appointment and calendar tracking. Not to mention the fees imposed on tenants to pay with a debit or credit card are so extremely high, that the tenants are not choosing it. The only other choice is e-checks(which are still checks that need to clear and have NSF fees and other problems we found) The marketing on the Appfolio website does not represent what we experienced. Very exaggerated and grossly under delivered what was promised. We are leaving and grateful we had the smarts to keep using our old software, so that our data for the past 6 months is not lost. Note to anyone considering Appfolio: they do not allow you to preview or learn the program before implementation. I strongly suggest, you demand it and do not sign up if they don't allow it.

Great program and a plethora of tools to use!

I switched to Appfolio from LiveRez for the accounting and the online advantages where tenants could pay online, owners could log in and see their statements online but mainly because the accounting is soooo much easier. It has streamlined our day-to-day activity by at least 50% if not more. We are a company that manages both long-term unfurnished properties and short-term vacation rentals. Appfolio is geared more towards the long-term properties but it has the capabilities to handle the accounting for short term vacation rentals as well. Not quite as integrated but it works. The only thing I would really like AF to be able to offer to customers is a way for us to make changes to the website directly so that we can change wording on different pages, change pictures that are on the home page, etc and be able to do so in real time. Now, you have to submit changes and someone gets to it in 2-3 days hopefully. That is the only thing I think could improve AF superiority. Also for customers to change page layouts (pick from some templates) that apply to different aspects of the company. Right now, our vacation rentals are listed but AF can't take out the APPLY NOW button which does not Apply to short term vacation rentals. This would be an easy fix to even change the button to read (Click to Inquire) or something like that where the button goes to a reservation page for vacation people to fill out. If the Website could be improved to accommodate both types of rental homes and also where customers could add/delete/change Metatags on their sites to improve SEO. This was something LiveRez had and it worked well. Overall, I am very pleased but would like to see more changes to accommodate Website changes on the fly and also add in something to the software that would work with vacation rental reservations, bookings, and all that goes along with this aspect of property management.

The software and platform is good but support and people are not. They understand the concept but do not posses the real world experience necessary to perform their jobs. Being in property management business it is crucial to pay owner in a timely matter and having issues with this part of the software would be very important to solve. Instead we get answers like "well they will just have to wait longer." This stems from the fact that their software does not allow direct payments to owners. Rather one has to upload files for the ACH to be executed on bank level. Well this comes at a cost that is not mentioned when they are selling you the software. In our case it would be about the same monthly dollar amount that I am paying for their software. This now doubles my cost from original software use, Buildium. Ugh! Very frustrating and would not recommend!

1. They bungled the install by sending a email to our current tenants, instructing them to start a portal with them so they could pay rent online, without our permission. In addition to the email being filled with inaccuracy and poorly written, the link provided directed them to our old site, which contained our tenants old portal system. Over 50% of our tenants made their payments on the old system due to the confusion created by APPFOLIO. The damaged from their negligence is significant. 2. Due to the above mentioned malfeasance, now we have an accounting nightmare to deal with, appfolio's response is beyond obtuse, demanding that we manually update their site in order to continue with online payments. 3. They charge their monthly fee while our system was being built in addition to the startup fees, but we paid for 2 months of a system that wasn't working. 4. They didn't label our deposits initially, causing havoc within our reconciliation process. 5. They drastically overstated their capacity, as many simple features found in other providers is still in beta (could for not working) 6. Have been unresponsive to challenges, your initial install team will not respond to any emails or calls after the initial install, no matter that the challenge originating during install, instead they cram a support team of very young people down your throat. 7. Their sales process was excellent, unfortunately they only deliver 25% of what they sell....we have experienced significant damages and losses.

We made the decision to switch to Appfolio almost 4 years ago. It was the best decision we ever made! The team has always been amazing when we reach out for help. Even when we managed to stump them...we all worked together for a solution! The ease of use and amazing features make the day-to-day process of being a property manager run smoothly. I have also been super impressed with the improvements that come out frequently. It only makes the experience better! It is so comforting to know that when we speak, you truly listen! I would recommend Appfolio to anyone who manages more than 1 property!

So far it has been really easy to n use, lots of great tools and I get lots of leads. Average vacancy is less than 45 days. Love the screening process, very easy to understand.

I have used other management software systems and AppFolio is by far the best. The system is easy to understand, user friendly and if you have any questions or concerns the customer service team is quick on getting you the information you need. What an amazing system that they have created!