Going from manual to meaningful: The tale of Two Seas Property Management

After working for other property management businesses for over 20 years, Tami decided she wanted to start her own company in 2018. Now, only five years later, she has nearly doubled her portfolio and become a leading property management business in the area.
“I started in property management 20 years ago. I worked for a very small company. I moved on, got my real estate license, and started taking on properties for quite a few years, working for other companies. Then about 10 years ago, I was hired to start a new company. I took two property management companies and merged them into one, so it was a pretty big undertaking. After that, I thought, why am I doing this for somebody else? So decided to open my own company in 2018 and have since doubled my portfolio.”

Maintenance can be challenging, especially when you’re managing single-family rental homes across town, each with different maintenance needs. However, with AppFolio, Tami can keep track of repairs, quickly communicate with residents, and dispatch vendors.
“My residents can go into their online portal and submit a maintenance request in a few seconds without having to go back and forth calling me. They can attach pictures to show me the problem, so I can get the right vendor out. It’s quick and the best part is that everything is documented.”
Along with maintenance requests, work orders are also seamless and have saved Tami valuable time.
“At my previous company, I had to wait for renters to email me photos or go and take them myself, and then go back into their paper files and check if we made the repair before. And then I would have to call the vendor, re-explain everything, and then schedule a time for them to complete the repair. It would take hours if not days to complete a work order. Sending a work order out now with AppFolio takes me five minutes.”

In the coming years, Tami’s primary goal is to delegate more of her day-to-day tasks to her assistant so that she can focus on winning new business and providing personalized service to renters and owners. AppFolio has made it easy to train her assistant and automate manual processes from accounting to maintenance.
“My goal is to get my assistant to the point where she’s doing all of the paperwork and the computer stuff, and I’m just out getting new properties, doing inspections, or meeting with the tenants. With AppFolio, she has been able to learn very quickly. She loves how easy it is to process work orders and input bills.”

When you have software that partners with you for the long haul, it’s easier to overcome challenges and reach your goals. Since day one, Tami has felt supported and that she could rely on the AppFolio team to answer questions, implement feedback, or troubleshoot issues.
“Every time that I’ve asked for help from AppFolio, they get back to me. It’s never longer than the next day. If I call, someone always answers, and someone will always find the solution. If I can’t figure something out, the tutorials are right there. Same with the User Community to help answer my questions. If it’s an emergency and I really need help now, there’s always someone on the other end of the phone. The customer support is amazing.”