“The ease of communication with investors in AppFolio Investment Manager is key.”

Brooke Herman
Controller, Pacific Apartment Homes

A Partnership with AppFolio

Brooke Herman wears many different hats as the Controller at Pacific Apartment Homes, from analyzing financial statements and calculating quarterly returns to evaluating acquisitions and new projects. We sat down with Brooke to hear how AppFolio Investment Manager is streamlining their processes and investor communications.

What processes have you been able to streamline with AppFolio Investment Manager?

Managing investor information in one place has been a huge time-saver. I used to have to copy, paste and create investor groups for mass emailing and other communication. Now, I'm able to click an investor group and send an email with project updates in seconds. The ease of communication with investors in AppFolio Investment Manager is key.

Being able to upload K1s for investors and other important documents into the Investor Portal has also saved us so much time. Investors aren't emailing me months down the road asking for their documents. They have the ability to access their documents and other historical data at any time.

How has using AppFolio Investment Manager impacted your relationships with your investors?

We've grown from a handful of investors to a sizable amount and that's where the Investor Portal comes into play. It's been a huge differentiator for us. We have a few investors that are extremely meticulous and tie out every single penny every quarter and they really enjoy being able to see all their data in one place. Now that we're really growing, the ability for them to have self-service access to their data--instead of me having to answer all investor questions--is saving me from having to hire an extra assistant to keep track of all these items.

What feedback have you gotten from your investors?

We used to send out Excel spreadsheets every time we did a quarterly distribution and we'd add a new tab for the spreadsheet and send it out, so our investors likely had hundreds of spreadsheets with their financial information. Since using AppFolio Investment Manager, our investors have been ecstatic to have all their information in one place, where they can log in and see every single investment and click into individual distributions.

One of our investors, in particular, said having a place to login and see his information has saved him a ton of time because now his assistant doesn't have to go through all his emails and sort through Excel spreadsheets. She can just see it all linked in AppFolio. So it really is a huge time-saver for him.

Other investors have also expressed that they are super happy with the switch. They feel like they can actually track their investment, almost like a stock. It helps legitimize the investment, and it feels good for them to see something tangible, like pictures of the buildings in their investment. It's really helped provide transparency and ease of access for them. I've had investors emailing me saying "this is awesome" and everyone's had really positive feedback.

Tell me about your experience with our Services Teams.

Every person I've spoken with or has helped me has been extremely knowledgeable and very quick to respond. Working with a dedicated representative during the transition and after was invaluable, it was great to have someone who knew our business and was there to explain or help us through any issue. Our rep has been amazing with helping me sort through spreadsheets and uploading a lot of historical data. Once we have it all dialed in, it'll allow me to be more involved in analyzing the deals that we have and being more aggressive with acquisitions.

Would you recommend AppFolio Investment Manager to other investment managers?

Yes, as a family-run operation, we are juggling it all so it's important for us to harness and leverage technology so that we can keep growing without adding headcount. AppFolio Investment Manager helps us do exactly that.