Renters Warehouse Leverages AppFolio Property Manager to Grow from 30 Customers to Over 4,000

A Bit of Backstory

Renters Warehouse is one of the largest and most awarded property management companies in the US. It provides professional landlord services to 2,800 customers from its Minnesota headquarters and 4,000 customers nationwide through its franchise brand.

When Renters Warehouse started in 2007, the company was using a homegrown spreadsheet system to manage its base of about 30 customers. The manual nature of the system caused time-consuming setbacks and limited the company's ability to scale quickly. Renters Warehouse knew it had to look for a solution to expedite the process of receiving rent and get a better handle on the accounting infrastructure for its growing list of owners and tenants.

"It used to take us about two to three days of manpower to open up all of the checks and enter information for each tenant," explained Brenton Hayden, Renters Warehouse CEO. "Our ability to grow, to handle large clients, and to pay owners was very limited by the fact that we hadn't upgraded our technology to facilitate the company's continued expansion."

The company's manual system was not only costing time, but money as well. "We used to have $20,000 to $30,000 a year in bad checks," Hayden said. "We knew that if we wanted to meet our goals of expanding and starting to work with franchise owners, we needed to upgrade from spreadsheets. We began seeking a system that was sophisticated enough to provide the functionality we needed, but also simple enough to support many users."

Solution: AppFolio Property Manager

"When I saw AppFolio Property Manager, I thought it was fantastic. It was clean, sleek, simple, and intuitive," said Hayden. He was particularly interested in how quickly he could implement the system, and how much time it could save the company and its customers."The biggest barrier we had was in knowing how to transfer our data over, but AppFolio really helped us through the process."

"We started in 2007 with about 30 customers and used a spreadsheet to manage our properties, and we switched to AppFolio Property Manager in 2008," Hayden continued. "We now have about 2,800 customers under management in Minnesota, with 4,000 across the country if we include the 10 franchises we've sold. Seven of them are already up and running with AppFolio Property Manager systems in place."

The ability to have tenants pay rent online has been a huge differentiator for Renters Warehouse. Before implementing AppFolio Property Manager, the company was wasting time and money dealing with bad checks and late rent. Now, 95 percent of Renters Warehouse tenants pay online through the AppFolio Property Manager ACH feature, and the company processes over $3 million per month in rent through the online payment system.

"AppFolio Property Manager really provides the best property management software out there. It's easy to learn, easy to add additional users, and doesn't require much training," said Hayden. "The company has even been open to making custom modifications just for our unique needs. I have made it so all Renters Warehouse offices use AppFolio Property Manager because it's such a competitive advantage. "With the self-help tutorial section available, it's even faster and more seamless for franchisees to get up to speed."

Hayden listed the training resources and the ACH capabilities at the top of a long list of capabilities afforded by the AppFolio Property Manager system. "We really benefit from being able to pay our owners using ACH online payments and we believe that we pay owners faster than anyone else in town. That's what people care about the most," he said.

Results

Since implementing AppFolio Property Manager, Renters Warehouse has seen:

• 10 franchises sold, with seven already open using AppFolio Property Manager
• $3.2M per month in rent processed, with 95% routed through AppFolio Property Manager ACH
• Over 50% market share in Twin Cities area, with $3M in advertising budget
• 500 units under management after 3 years in Arizona market
• 2800 customers in Minnesota market and 4,000 nationwide
• Adding 150 units per month to management load