Customer Story
Cadman Group: Gaining Efficiencies and Making Time to Do Good
Cadman Group
Established: 1995
Location: Long Beach, California
Portfolio: Multifamily, Commercial, Asset Management
Over the past 30 years, Cadman Group has uniquely blended commercial real estate, property ownership, and property management into a thriving boutique operation, with 1,200+ units across 70 properties. In talking to Neil Cadman, Cadman Group President and Founder, we explored how having one trusted technology software platform has helped his teams realize new efficiencies, gain time to do more in their roles, and do good in their communities.
1,200+ units
Over 200%
“I know where I stand with AppFolio. I love the company; I love the software. I would say the old way of doing things is manual, and the new way is automatic. All of our properties are all on one software, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Neil Cadman
President and Founder, Cadman Group, 1,200+ units
Delivering Results for Over a Decade
Cadman Group provides a diverse mix of services, from commercial real estate to residential property management, but what gives them a unique perspective is property ownership. Because they own many of the buildings they manage, President and Founder Neil Cadman personally knows what it feels like to be on the “other end of the phone” when communicating with owners. As an AppFolio customer for more than 12 years, Neil shares that AppFolio makes maintaining that communication as easy as possible:
“As a property management company, having an owner’s perspective can set you apart from competitors — and that’s key. We are a boutique property management company, which means we will never get big enough to a point where an owner ever feels like they are treated like a minnow in a sea of sharks.”
Leveraging a Single Source of Truth Proves Valuable
With 1,200+ multifamily residential units spread across a 60-mile footprint, 500,000 square feet of managed-portfolio industrial warehouse and commercial space, two offices, and 30 employees, Neil Cadman has a lot to juggle and oversee. One thing he does not have to worry about is logging onto multiple dashboards and reconciling various sources of data and connection points. With AppFolio as his company’s “one-stop shop,” Neil can both streamline operations and trust in his software platform as Cadman Group’s “single source of truth.”
“Previously, our CRM did not integrate with any other platforms. There was duplicate information and multiple technologies that didn’t talk to each other. Now, we’ve retired a number of different documents because we trust the AppFolio data. That data integrity is a huge point. If we go out and tell investors one thing, and it doesn’t match the data, our integrity is at stake. So, that trusted single source of truth has been helpful to us.”
“All of our properties are on one software platform: AppFolio. Investing in technology can be a significant capital expense, but when we took the dive into AppFolio 12 years ago, we did so to get a return on our investment. Our team can now maximize how much they get done in the least amount of time.”
Making Onboarding Easy and Expeditious
Cadman Group knew they needed better property management software, but they relied on solutions such as Quickbooks for a long time simply because they couldn't find the right technology solution. While looking at potential software partners, Neil and his teams found onboarding to be extremely difficult across multiple providers. One instance, in fact, was so burdensome that they got halfway through onboarding before giving up and reverting back to their manual processes.
After just one call with AppFolio, Neil felt he had finally found the right fit:
“I remember on the very first pitch call, we were being shown a demo of how AppFolio works. A team member and I looked at each other and said, ‘Oh, we have to do this.’ We decided then and there that we’d join AppFolio. Our onboarding process was really seamless, and it was great that it only took about 30 days to get us onboarded. We made the decision to switch very quickly, never looked back, and it's proven successful for us.”
Scalable Solutions for Present-Day and Future Needs
While Neil has seen his company grow over the past 30 years, one thing he’s passionate about is owning many of the properties that are managed by Cadman Group. As President, he’s proud to share that they own about half of their units and considers this to be a part of what makes his company unique. Since they themselves are their “largest client,” Neil has kept scalable solutions in mind when working with AppFolio and considering growth and competitive industry factors.
In fact, Neil not only considers AppFolio to be a trusted partner but also “feels like AppFolio is a staff member, and I treat them as such.” He shares:
“The more units that you have, the more you’ve got a reason to have high-quality software. AppFolio can operate a two-unit building as well as it operates a 500-unit building. It does everything you need it to do, from managing maintenance, alerting you of upcoming vacancies, to reminding residents about rent, and providing owners their financial reports.”
Functional Features Set the Foundation for Success
Cadman Group uses many AppFolio tools to manage their diverse portfolio of residential units and commercial space. For each task, their goals are efficiency and user satisfaction across employees, residents, owners, and vendors alike. Being able to work faster, cut task time down, and deliver a seamless user experience are just a few of the benefits that AppFolio provides teams. Neil expands:
“We use Smart Maintenance because residents can put in a work order, and that work order can be scheduled without someone having to physically do that. That saves our team valuable time and creates really important paper trails.
We also use every available AppFolio payment feature. People are shocked to hear we have one bookkeeper for the number of properties we manage. Because of AppFolio, she’s not manually entering bills anymore, residents pay online through their portal, and she doesn’t have to physically do bank reconciliations. So many tasks that took her hours each day are almost completely automated.
Also, the AI Leasing Assistant, Lisa, has also become a member of our family. The benefits of Lisa have been huge.
It’s also really easy to communicate in AppFolio because we can text and email everyone. We’re here to provide customer service. It just happens to be in the form of AppFolio.”
Happier Team Members Drive Impressive Results
It’s no surprise that a more user-friendly, efficient, and capable software platform can deliver improved business metrics. Cadman Group has seen improvements in speed across critical functions, including marketing vacancies, online applications, maintenance tasks, rent collections, owner reports, and vendor payments. Tasks that used to take a full day, such as owner distributions, are now achieved in mere minutes with AppFolio.
But beyond business results, these improvements have also resulted in happier team members and boosted morale. Neil explains:
“It’s my job to give my team every tool they need to be successful, whether that’s hardware, software, support, mentoring, training, or supervision. I want to make sure that if you’re going to spend a significant part of your day at a place that’s away from your loved ones and passions, it’s going to be doing something that’s rewarding. I’m very proud of the people that I get to call my work family.”
Automation Enables Greater Efficiency and Fewer Errors
While having the right-sized, right-fit property management software provides many benefits, the biggest one cited is efficiency. This has definitely been the case for Cadman Group. By consolidating into a one-stop shop and automating many owner, employee, and resident tasks with AppFolio, Neil’s teams have become significantly more efficient. With that efficiency comes the ability to make the most of their time for other valuable contributions.
Neil shares that efficiencies gained with AppFolio translate to higher productivity and fewer errors:
“Technology and software give people the ability to do more because you're able to do more things in less time … Having everything integrated into one place is not only a benefit to productivity, it's become a requirement. The importance of having just one consolidated system is the amount of time saved.”
Gaining the Gift of Time to Give Back and Do Good
With gained efficiencies, the Cadman Group can reclaim time for both their professional and personal lives. Professionally, Neil’s teams are freed up to work on higher-value tasks and less manual work. Beyond their day-to-day roles, they’re also all encouraged to participate in Cadman Cares — a volunteer work program that gives back to those in the community who may be at risk or in need. Employees are encouraged to submit ideas on areas of philanthropy that they feel passionate about to keep the whole company involved.
On a more personal level, as President, Neil keeps it real with how AppFolio helps gain time back both at work and at home:
“AppFolio gives me more time to spend with my family and my kids and allows me to spend more time doing other passions.”
Neil Cadman
President and Founder, Cadman Group, 1,200+ Units
Why take our word for it?
See What AppFolio
Can Do for You
Can Do for You
Your success is our passion. Whether it’s onboarding, support, or strategic advice, product
experts are on call to answer your questions.