Unlocking Success: How Innovation Transforms the Resident Onboarding Experience
For property managers, resident onboarding is a challenging but necessary part of the job. But for residents, it is so much more — it’s an official welcome to their new home. Moving is a significant undertaking, and your team's handling of the process from day one establishes the resident relationship. A clunky onboarding experience not only diminishes a resident’s excitement; it negatively affects your reputation and the likelihood of a lease renewal. In contrast, seamless onboarding presents a golden opportunity to improve a new resident’s experience, and ultimately, your success.
Category: Resident Experience
Last modified: October 24, 2025
By: Ryan Geidner
AppFolio Resident Onboarding: Maximizing Every Moment
Creating a stellar resident onboarding experience isn’t just about providing good customer service: It’s the foundation to creating a space residents won’t want to leave. Here’s how you can increase resident satisfaction and build a better business at the same time with new solutions in FolioSpace™.
Enhanced Move-In Insights
Get the visibility you need to manage every move-in efficiently, and at scale. Now, future move-ins will persist on the dashboard in AppFolio Property Manager even after you complete the initial move-in flow, allowing you to quickly understand where each resident is in their onboarding journey and enable them to activate their portal and complete move-in tasks ahead of their move-in date.
Guided Move-In Experience
Personally following up on every new resident question and manually guiding them through each stage of the move-in process keeps teams locked to their desks and grinding through emails. Instead, empower residents — and free your staff to do their best work — with a simple and structured move-in experience that guides residents through key tasks such as lease signing, meeting insurance requirements, confirming their obligated utilities, and more. What used to take teams one week, two phone calls, and three emails now takes just minutes with self-service solutions for residents.
Utility Configuration
In our 2025 Renter Preferences Report, respondents shared that setting up utilities is the most difficult task to complete when moving into a new home. To streamline this process, we're excited to add extended functionality to the move-in flow in AppFolio Property Manager. Rather than sending multiple instruction and status emails, FolioSpace will allow you to set required utilities for each resident and residents can easily confirm utility ownership on the move-in checklist, all in one connected system without the back and forth.
Resident Onboarding Lift
Go beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to onboarding by providing residents with a personalized step-by-step guide through deposits, lease responsibilities, move-in tasks, and resident benefits packages that drive recurring revenue — without adding extra work for your team. This exclusive integration between AppFolio and Second Nature makes the journey from approved to moved clear, personalized, and effortless — so residents understand it, pay for it, and stay for it.
Unlock the FUTURE of Resident Experiences
Discover the highlights and key takeaways from our recent FUTURE 2025 conference, including the launch of the AppFolio Performance Platform, the introduction of Realm-X Performers, and Resident Onboarding Lift, plus the speakers, insights, and sessions that made the conference truly unforgettable.