How Rainier Properties streamlined their systems for greater ROI

The problem solver

Rainier Properties has made a name for themselves by being a boutique-style property management company and real estate investment firm offering unique rentals for young professionals and families. 

In her role as Asset Manager of Operations, Anne considers herself to be a “problem solver” and takes pride in creating efficiencies, reducing redundancies, and being a lifeline for team members who need help. “My biggest passion is making sure people have somewhere to go if they need help. It bothers me if there’s a roundabout way of doing something and it doesn’t go away until I figure out a way to solve it.”

One particular problem that needed solving was finding a new software provider that didn't feel disconnected or take dozens of clicks to find important information for all 2,000 of their units.

“Our previous solution felt very segmented to the point where we had to exit completely out of the system if we wanted to look at multiple properties. But with AppFolio, all of our data is together in one place. Searching for data is now task oriented rather than property oriented.”

A single source of truth for data

“I think people forget how useful Global Search is; it’s the main search function within AppFolio. I may not know where every function is, but I know how to get to it by just typing it in. That makes life easier.”

Lisa, the AI Leasing Assistant

“We really love Lisa! During the busy season, our phones would ring constantly to the point where phone calls took a higher priority and email leads were often ignored. Now, everything gets routed to Lisa and it’s like having another team member. These items weren’t paid attention to previously but are now a huge core responsibility of Rainier’s customer service.”

Robust accounting for accountants

“Before AppFolio, managers had to enter bills in a very specific way, and our accounts payable team would constantly need to correct or adjust what was entered. With the advances in efficiency we achieved with the immense help from AppFolio, it propelled our AP person to learn more about accounting and start a new role at the company as a Staff Accountant, which was extremely exciting!”

Turning maintenance woes into wows

“Our residents submit Maintenance Requests very easily. Work orders come in, and our maintenance [team] can see everything on their phones. We’ve gotten into a groove of people using the after-hours system when needed, and our teams are great at communicating repairs that need to be done when it’s an emergency. This has saved us around two to five hours per week.”

Self-serve training

“When we were learning the system, the help articles were really helpful. It’s like AppFolio already knows what I’m thinking and there’s already a full article about it. There’s also a discussion board for customers where I can search for keywords.”