Partnering in Growth

with AppFolio Property Manager PLUS

YEAR ESTABLISHED

1993

UNITS MANAGED

6,400+

UNITS ADDED SINCE GO-LIVE

4,000+

APM TIER

Company

Artcraft Management | Glen Allen, VA

Portfolio Type

Single-family Residential, Multifamily Residential, Affordable Housing, Senior Housing, Commercial

Previous Solution

Yardi

A Bit of Backstory

Artcraft has been buying and renovating multifamily buildings since 1993. They now own and manage a diverse portfolio of properties, from senior housing, community associations and high-end luxury, to affordable and other residential units, with the bulk of their portfolio in Virginia. Since 2014, they’ve grown from 2,000 units to over 6,000 units and they are continuing their rapid pace of growth.

Interview with Artcraft

Alethea Parker joined Artcraft in 1998 and has been President since 2011. Around the same time Alethea joined the company, they began building and developing senior communities, focusing on affordable housing and making a difference in their community. When they switched to AppFolio in 2011, they began to rapidly scale their business and have continued to rely on AppFolio to fuel and support their diverse portfolio as it grows.

How was your transition to AppFolio Property Manager PLUS?

With our previous software, we felt like we were just another customer and not prioritized at all. We had to pay for every additional service or feature. Once we were ready to switch, we evaluated a few different softwares, but we knew AppFolio was who we wanted to partner with. Because we’ve been with AppFolio for awhile now we feel like we were a part of the development and a partner in our mutual growth. The pace of innovation at AppFolio is amazing and it’s been great to see and experience.

house.

What efficiencies have you experienced with AppFolio Property Manager PLUS?

I have AppFolio open all day and from an executive level I am constantly looking at data and creating reports that give me better insight into our business. I can find things really quickly in AppFolio and I use the Performance Insights Dashboard to raise questions for my team and answer any questions from owners. I can generate a cash-flow report in seconds to make sure we are tracking.

The workflows process with AppFolio Property Manager PLUS has been great for our back-office teams and property managers. We’re hoping to fully phase out all the calendars and schedules that we keep in Google Drive and move it over to AppFolio. Our staff has a monthly schedule that has tasks for each day of the month and we’re getting all of that into AppFolio. Having our team be able to log in to one software to do their job, it really makes their day easier and frees up their time to provide great service to our residents. There are no multiple passwords or logins that they have to remember.

As far as streamlining activity, we’ve worked with AppFolio to export information from our database so we have full customization control over our reports and we can extract all the data we need to provide better insights for us and our owners.

How has AppFolio supported you as you’ve quickly scaled your business?

AppFolio allows us to work on behalf of our owners and help them grow along with us. We’ve maintained great relationships with our owners who continually grow their portfolios with us and it’s been huge for our growth as well. Obviously, we’re doing something right and AppFolio helps fuel that great service to our owners. As we’ve scaled our business we’ve also been able to add units without adding too much headcount so we’re running an efficient operation.

What’s your favorite thing about AppFolio Property Manager PLUS?

I come in in the morning and I see the “What’s New” button and I just get so excited about the features that are coming down that pipe. You guys are innovating so quickly and I’m also sending emails to my team making sure they saw this feature or they are utilizing this new functionality in AppFolio that will make our lives easier.

I also use the dashboard every day, it provides me all the information I need at my fingertips. I use the calendar and the task list to track to make sure we are making progress and not getting behind. For me, I’m looking at online payments, leasing activity, and key performance metrics. I can see, it can tell me where we are tracking. I’m also looking at delinquencies and checking where those are at. AppFolio Property Manager PLUS is really helping us go in the right direction.

quote

"From the moment we transitioned, we felt like we were important to AppFolio and everyone who worked with us."

ALETHEA PARKER
President, Artcraft Management

What is your experience with AppFolio’s service and support teams?

The service that we’ve received with AppFolio is light years away from what we had experienced before. Instead of waiting and hoping that someone would call us back or having to pay a third-party vendor to support us and write our reports for us, the transition was pretty smooth compared to what we’ve done in the past.

From the moment we transitioned to AppFolio, we felt like we were important to them. We’ve given many product suggestions over the years, and as AppFolio has continually rolled out new features, I’m convinced that somebody is sitting at the other end reading my suggestions and turning around a coding them immediately to make needed features available for my business. AppFolio really listens to their customers. I feel like we’ve grown with AppFolio and that the team serves us quickly and with great service. This is so important to us because we never felt like this with other software providers.

3 women in casual warm weather clothing walking near restaurants & a separate image of a grey house.

Do you recommend AppFolio to your colleagues?

Yes, I do. I try to convince a lot of people how great AppFolio is.