How user-friendly, intuitive software helps MD Squared thrive in the city that never sleeps.
MD Squared
Location: New York City \ Portfolio: Multifamily, Commercial, Community Associations, Co-op, Industrial \ Business structure: Fee management, Owner-operator, Investment managementOn the cusp of graduating with a degree in Computer Science, Michael Mintz realized it was a career that didn’t align with his vision for his future. It was the world of real estate that did, and in no place other than the concrete jungle of New York City. After gaining experience, he started his own property management and investment firm, and found AppFolio to be the technology partner that would help him scale efficiently and on his own terms. Here’s his story.
Established
2014
Units managed
4,000+
“We use AppFolio to manage around 4,300 units, and we're finding it to be really effective. Even our institutional clients, some big-name publicly traded companies, they're on AppFolio now in terms of the reporting that they get from us, and they're loving it.”
Ups and downs
Michael’s first job in real estate was an internship with a Washington, D.C.-based developer in 2007, the year the housing market imploded leading to the Great Financial Crisis.
“The company I was with specialized in affordable housing condo conversions. We would convert rental buildings to condos. All the construction projects that we were doing stalled. So we looked to see what properties were at a point where we could just rent out the units. I turned into a property manager, and then from there, decided to move up to New York and started working for a large national property management firm.”
Standing out in the Big Apple
Michael then started MD Squared with Don Dixie with the mission of elevating customer support — for both clients and residents.
“We focus on the fundamentals. My belief is that this is not a business that you need to create some kind of super sophisticated, super complicated formula. It's just about doing the basics really well, and when we do that, we serve the property owners and residents in the best way possible. And that’s one of the reasons that we like AppFolio a lot. It helps our managers stay on top of the basics and do them really, really well.”
So what are those basics?
Tracking delinquencies
“The automation process that AppFolio allows for by sending out automatic emails and texts for delinquencies has been super helpful.”
Reporting
“The automatic reports have been a game-changer. We have it set up where our managers, on certain days of the month, will be automatically emailed their delinquency reports so that they don't even have to go into the system and try to pull them. It just puts it in front of them and forces them to look at it.”
Tracking unit turns
“As units are turning over, things like keeping track of the renovations of the units and the leasing process are extremely important just to make sure we get the units leased up quickly. AppFolio does a great job with all that.”
Can one be greater than two?
In MD Squared’s case, yes. Before joining AppFolio, the company used two property management platforms: Yardi and RIS, a New York-specific system. Michael describes RIS as not cloud-based, a major pain point, and generally not comprehensive enough for a business of MD Squared’s size. He adds:
“Just finding people who are qualified to actually do the accounting on Yardi and run the backend of it is a big challenge. It costs us a lot more to hire people who know how to use it, and training people on Yardi is always a challenge. But for the basic functionality of AppFolio, you don't really need to teach anyone anything. You just open it up and people intuitively know what to do. AppFolio is super simple to use, but at the same time incredibly powerful and sophisticated.”
Compliance made easy
“We like the functionality that lets us store legal rents in the system and produce rent-stabilized leases directly in the system.”
Finding — and keeping — talent
“Hiring is our greatest challenge right now. It's just really hard to find good people. AppFolio isn’t necessarily a selling point when we interview job applicants because they might not be familiar with the software yet. But after being hired and onboarded, they tell us that they love AppFolio. It makes them more efficient. It gives them more flexibility, more freedom. For clients, though, it’s definitely a selling point. When we talk to them about the features of AppFolio, they really appreciate them.”
A partner for growth
Michael has big growth plans for MD Squared. He wants to expand across the country and take on additional asset classes. And while organic growth is one route, he knows that acquisitions are a powerful way to accelerate his growth plans. That’s why he’s been pursuing a strategy of acquiring property management firms. He describes how bringing these new acquisitions onto AppFolio has made what can be a daunting transition, seamless.
“We purchased a company back in December. They were on one of these older systems. We trained them on AppFolio, and literally, within a few weeks, everyone was up and running and understood how to use AppFolio, and they loved it. It just totally transformed how their business worked, both for the employees and the clients.”
Michael Mintz
Co-Founder and CEO
MD Squared
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