AppFolio Property Manager vs. Condo Control

We have 6 apartment buildings that we manage. Every month we were having to drive to each location to collect rent checks. Since using appfolio, we only have a couple of renters that still send in a paper check, the rest pay online, so we are ensuring that our renters are paying on time. Once we have an applicant apply, the old way was to take their scanned application, review, and then pay to have a background check conducted. Now, with appfolio, we are able to have them apply, sign off on the background check, and pay their deposit all in one shot. It has allowed our property managers to focus on other property items rather than conducting background checks.

Incentivized

It is well suited to a user community that is computer savvy. It is great for posting service requests because they can be done from a smartphone while walking through the building. Classified ads are helpful in allowing residents to rent parking spots or sell goods. The Survey feature is helpful for measuring the pulse of the community on different issues.

Incentivized

• Multi-entity accounting management
• Checking printing: We have multiple bank accounts tied to our account and utilize blank check stock. Appfolio automatically prints the routing numbers and account numbers at the bottom of the blank checks based on which property we are paying a bill from.
• Tie-in with their Investment Management tool gives our investors a great resource while keeping our investments in sync with our accounting software.

Incentivized

• We had a need to add ongoing repetetive calendar bookings for amenities for various clubs and groups. CCC quickly designed and implemented the changes we required to satisfy around 20 different clubs and groups for booking many events and amenities.
• This software provides one location to record all pertinent data for our condo. There are too many components here to mention them all.
• Some examples Include: building design drawings.
• Owner posted data from pets to parking details.
• Instant building wide communication.
• Access to rules, regulations, and procedures for all residents.
• Access to forms to submit to the board for various approvals.
• Condo Control Central has been very flexible and accomodating and developing whatever changes we have requested.

Incentivized

• Only a few very technical items that wouldn't necessarily make sense to non-users and I haven't even cared enough to submit requests on the issues. It'd be nice if parking was easier to keep track of on the system. Right now, if you run a report it doesn't show all the information our company requires for the vehicles and therefore we have to keep track of it elsewhere.
• Another obstacle we've encountered is that the program charges "by door" so if you have multiple units and properties you can really rack up pricing. That's especially true for large multi-unit buildings with parking.

Incentivized

• The home screen is not very modern. There are graphs and silly things on there.
• Emailing the help desk doesn't seem to work....an electronic response comes in but not an answer. If you call, you get a live agent immediately though.
• Everything else is great.

Incentivized

The system is so intuitive and easy to use. There’s almost nothing in the system that can’t be undone if you make a mistake. Important things also have their own tabs. It’s also easy to use from the resident side which is helpful for in a world where everyone is not tech-savvy.

Incentivized

In our experience, customer support consists of submitting questions to a bot. When the bot can't answer the question it repeats your question back to you. When you ask for customer support, someone says they will email you with an answer. The answer never comes and then your question is closed out. In my experience, customer service reps then direct you to go to the suggestion boards where you realize there are thousands of frustrated AppFolio Property Manager users who are receiving no help. On our particular hot-spot issue, other customers have submitted requests for help since 2015, but no help is forthcoming

Incentivized

I have had to contact CCC on a number of occasions and each time I was pleasantly surprised by their quick response and helpful information. They are always willing to help and make sure their clients are happy with information provided to them.

Before we used AppFolio Property Manager we used Skyline. Skyline Property Management was super outdated. The tenants did not have access to that program so we had to purchase another program for them to make their payments through. We would then have to manually enter every single payment. Onboarding and transferring data to AppFolio from Skyline was a nightmare and took us several months. AppFolio is so much easier for tenant use.

Incentivized

The interface is clean and self explanatory. It is easy to operate and communication has been made so easy and secure.

Incentivized

• Wonderful to see how much rent we are drawing in, so we can base budgets off of that. It is a great way to retain that rent and put towards future improvements.
• Wonderful way for tenants to pay their rent without us using a separate payment system or ACH payment. They can set up an account with a credit or debit card, or checking account and it drastically helps us with time management!
• The help that the AppFolio staff is willing to do, saves time on us trying to troubleshoot.

Incentivized

• The software is extremely useful, once a residents is added to the system they receive an automatic welcome email with instructions on how to log in and the benefits of using the software to communicate with management and concierge.
• It is easy to download the contact information to print labels when doing a mail out.