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Property Management Solution Like Appfolio Property Manager
On-Demand Apps

The Power Of Appfolio-Like Apps For Property Managers

Sanjay Kidecha,

“To be successful in real estate, you must always and consistently put your clients’ best interests first. When you do, your personal needs will be realized beyond your greatest expectations.” -Anthony Hitt.

Real estate is one of the oldest businesses in the world. The business has its roots deep in history, but it’s still booming now. And realtors are one of the main reasons behind the popularity of this industry. Realtors work as an anchor between real estate investors, buyers, and sellers. However, serving countless diverse customers consistently requires them to employ modern solutions like Custom property management app development. 

If you are a realtor or a broker, you probably have tried property management software. Regardless of the size of the company, you can find great software solutions in the industry. However, when it comes to real estate, there are some special needs that you may not find in the industry. The deficiency can lead you to fear what if you fail to meet your customer expectations.

The fear is real for realtors who ignore the latest market trends to satisfy their customer needs. Knowing market trends is not enough, though. You need to assess your business flow every now and then to decide which one to opt for: 

Where does your communication plan lack? Do some tenants take more frequent reminders for a rent due date? Does your business need a solution to address constant maintenance requests directly? Do your prospects find it annoying to hand-deliver a signed contract? 

develop custom property management software

So, Would it be really profitable to develop custom property management software?

With the arrival of the latest technologies, all realtors are now using custom property management software for their businesses. If you are not using the latest market tools for your real estate business, it doesn’t matter how hard you work. You might likely end up losing the competition.

There is a company in Northern California, Redwood Property Investors. They deal in a wide range of real estate services, including acquisition, planning, development, sales, construction, leasing, and property management. The company needed a software solution to scale efficiently. However, they were not confident about switching to a whole new system, fearing extended downtime. 

The reason why Redwood was hesitant is their previous experience. They had used various point solutions, but all they witnessed were challenges—such as the systems could not always work together evenly, often resulting in setbacks that caused friction and frustration. 

Appfolio appears as a silver lining!

“We kept bolting on other software to our former solution until we realized we were spending $15,000 a year with no end in sight, and there were integration issues. Then we came across AppFolio and said, ‘Wait, AppFolio has all of this in one package?’” said Jerry Tanaka, Redwood Property Investors’ COO.

And they sealed the deal with AppFolio and went live on March 01, 2020, with their digital property management business. It was just a few weeks before the pandemic. Nevertheless, the company leveraged the global downtime, streamlining and aligning their internal processes on the new property management software. And by 2021, they were already rocking and rolling with significant growth in their business.

Consequently, their decision resulted in,

  • 1300+Units managed, 
  • 360% Increase in online payments,
  • 50% Increase in units managed
  • 5X faster Maintenance requests addressed

The success story of Redwood says it all. A digital solution is all you need to grow your real estate business. That’s why every realtor must think about adopting or developing property management software for real estate to manage the processes and activities of their portfolio. 

Custom Property Management App Development Solution

What do Customers Expect from your Custom Property Management App Development Solution?

Unlike other industries, real estate is complex because you encounter customers with a wide variety of requirements. For example, one needs to rent a 2BHK apartment, another wants to lease or sell their home, while investors look for properties to buy, renovate, and trade, and so on. 

As they say, the more, the merrier. Here, the more customers, the broader range of needs, wishes, and problems they want you to solve. In that case, using random real estate property management software results in chaos. Because that random software isn’t designed for your type of customers.

On that account, a customized property management system is essential. Since the software or app will be designed, concentrating on your business requirements and customers, you can fulfill specific customer needs quickly.

So, let us show you what else customers expect from real estate mobile apps in 2022. In addition, we’ll see how customized software helps solve their problems.

Property buyers

Customers looking to buy properties for whatever reasons demand a modern solution that empowers them to browse and review available options. Besides, since the pandemic, providing 2D and 3D virtual tours of the property have become necessary. Not to mention online estimation calculators are also among the sought-after features. All these advanced features attract property buyers.

Owners and renters 

Properties owners reap benefits from a rental properties app that provides accurate asset evaluation and renovation analysis. It helps them from property listings to keeping track of every maintenance.

As for the renters, the solution unlocks real estate options in any location they prefer. Moreover, they get a search filter, virtual tour, approx rent, and other features to find the property of their choice. In addition to features, photographs, details about amenities, and neighborhoods accelerate decision-making. 

Besides, bulk emails and text messages are a key technology to leverage for driving up resident engagement on your rental app. This way, property managers can stay in touch with tenants, keep them informed about policies, send urgent notifications, or sometimes customize individual messages, too. 

Developers and renovators 

Technology has played a considerable role for property management companies dealing with renovating and real estate development services. Pairing their ERP with property development software, track and manage their resources, analyze data, and optimize workflows more efficiently.

For renovating existing properties, on the other hand, residents can order services online, posting photos and videos, explaining the repair work. Ultimately, using a property management app like AppFolio, both the target audience and company breathe a sigh of relief.

Other types of real estate demands and software solutions the world needs:

  • Retail and office space needs a commercial property management app solution;
  • Vacation properties rental app for renting properties for a short time or vacation;
  • App for managing Condominium, co-op, or townhouses properties;
  • Industrial Property Management App for Logistics and Warehouse Facilities, and other Industrial Properties;

There might be more types of real estate customers and businesses that a realtor must account for tailoring their business model for property management apps. Now, let’s dive into some effective real estate solutions and weigh up the problems they solve.

cost to develop a custom property management app

What does it cost to develop a custom property management app?

With the demand for software development services, the Property Management App Development Cost has also slightly increased. Yet if you follow a strategic app development approach, you can avoid spending a fortune on real estate app development.

The approach is to understand and manage the variable factors of app development cost. You need a team of development specialists that includes,

Since the cost highly depends on the rates they charge, which differs country-wise, choose a cost-effective country. India, for example, is one of the best countries to hire app developers. Here you can find reasonable and seasoned app developers.

Anyway, the size of your real-estate business and the type of software you also need heavily impact the overall cost.

How do different sizes of a real-estate business affect the app development cost?

  • Startup ventures may not require feature-rich and sophisticated software architecture so that it may cost around $25 000;
  • Mid-size businesses, in contrast, might need a bit advanced set of features as per their services so, it may cost around $50 000;
  • Large-scale real estate firms tend to have a wide range of services to list, manage and offer so that it may cost more than $80 000.

Now, if you want to make your real estate business fun with custom software, you can count on us. We assure our clients to get the best collaboration experience and efficient product for the business.

Sanjay Kidecha

Sanjay Kidecha is the Chief Finance Officer at Kody Technolab and a Fintech geek. With one foot in finance and the other in tech, Sanjay likes to write on emerging Fintech trends, ideas, and how-to guides to keep industry leaders updated with the ever-changing world of fintech!

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