How T.R. Lawing Realty streamlines operations and provides standout service to owners and renters

The Charlotte, North Carolina real estate market is “going straight up,” as Tommy Lawing Jr. tells us. But well before the in-migration began, T.R. Lawing Realty was there to provide real estate owners with first class property management.
“Dad had started the company in ‘57. We started doing single family probably in the 60’s or 70’s. I had an MAI appraiser who said there would not be single family management in Charlotte if it wasn't for T.R. Lawing Realty.”

The team explains how AppFolio helped increase operational efficiency and boost their bottom line:

Marketing:

“The way we can market vacancies is a big help. With one click they go out to all your major listing services. In the past, we had to input those separately. So putting them in AppFolio and hitting post, that saves a lot of time.”

Leasing:

“We get on average 4,000 inquiries a month. With Lisa, the AI leasing agent, we don't have to respond to all those. She’s able to churn through what I call ‘the tire kickers’ and leave the more serious folks to our leasing staff.”

Applications & move-ins:

“The application process, with everything built into AppFolio, allows us to process an application much quicker and since it's already in AppFolio, we don’t have to manually punch information into our system to help convert them to a tenant. It's already there.”

Rent week:

“Online payments are key. We're up above 70% with our online payments. So that cuts down the amount of people walking into our doors, especially the first five days of the month, to exchange rent payment for a maintenance request. Both of those take two to three people to help with. Now they pay online, they might have a maintenance request, but we're able to all handle that online.”

Resident communications:

“If there's a complaint, being able to look back in the AppFolio file and see all those texts and emails consolidated in one place is super helpful and convenient. I can go back and tell you that this is when we corresponded, and this is what we said. So all of that being digital is really a help in terms of resolution and accountability.”

Owner communications:

“We're able to provide faster service to property owners. When they request something, like a work order or a copy of a lease or an owner statement, I don't have to go to a filing cabinet, find a statement, scan it into a computer and email it. It's just right there at their fingertips in their owner portal.”

Accounting:

“It's very user friendly. When running reports, you can see how the cash matches the balance sheet very, very quickly with cash flow, the trial balance, etc. And the Revenue Management side is instantaneous in the GL side. When you cut a check, it's instantaneous on the owner reports. Before AppFolio, we had software that, at least once a day, you had to create journal entries from the income side and the AP side. So it's much, much better now.”

Staffing / overhead:

“With AppFolio, we’re able to purchase a portfolio of anywhere from 30 to 400 units without having to add a whole lot of staff. If we take over a management company that has four employees managing the workflow, we can bring it in and maybe have to add one employee, if that. The quality of our staff has also increased. I no longer need the rookie. I don't need somebody to fold the letters and stick it in the envelope. I can focus on higher quality staff because they're leasing, processing applications, doing the stuff that makes us money versus just picking up phone calls and spending time with a hundred prospects that may result in two applications.”