Park Row Equity Partners: Driving investment with professionalism and automation

“AppFolio Investment Manager gives us not only credibility, it gives us professionalism.”

Alan Steinberg
President, Park Row Equity Partners

What was your business like before you adopted AppFolio?

Donny Steinberg: We have properties in big cities throughout the U.S., Chicago, Denver, Colorado Springs, Atlanta, Phoenix Arizona, Orlando Florida..."

Phil Steinberg: And when I walked into the office, it was basically a bunch of spreadsheets—excels, documents—that I always had to update and put new numbers and names into. Then, within two years my brother joined, and we got introduced to AppFolio Investment Manager and it completely changed the game for all of us.

How was the onboarding experience with AppFolio?

Ira Steinberg: So, we actually thought that the implementation process was going to be a little complicated, but it was actually extremely simple. They basically said, "You have your information, throw it to us and we'll decide where it all goes and how it will look."

Donny Steinberg: They really guided me through the process. And when I shared some of my ideas of what I wanted it to look like, then they shared some of the tools with me that I could use to implement those features—so they were very helpful there as well.

How has AppFolio Investment Manager changed your business?

Alan Steinberg: It is important to have real-time visibility to your investments’ progress, and the Investor Portal gives investors 24-hour access to their details. I find that with AppFolio Investment Manager, it has given us a platform of professionalism that we otherwise didn't have, and it has been attracting new investors.

Donny Steinberg: Something that I created on the AppFolio website was this almost quasi channel for our investors, or for our asset managers to upload documents through our website. Then those will be directly placed in the folders on our cloud drive, where we want them to be placed. So, in this way the website and the portal allows us to streamline a lot of the processes where otherwise it would just take up a lot of our time. Appfolio Investment Manager really helps us streamline and automate the day-to-day processes so that we are able to focus on the bigger picture.

Are there any features that Park Row Equity Partners has found especially useful?

Phil Steinberg: It has enabled us to be able to be in touch with investors, to be in touch with property managers, and be able to send out distributions from out of the office (which I didn't think was ever going to be possible). My favorite feature within AppFolio Investment Manager is being able to send out the investments basically with the click of a button.

What would you tell someone that was considering adopting AppFolio Investment Manager?

Donny Steinberg: On every AppFolio page that we edit, there is always a feedback button. Within hours, or for sure within that day, we will get a notification from AppFolio staff responding to our question. I believe that shows that they are really open to growth and growing based on the feedback they they are given by clients.

Ira Steinberg: Working with AppFolio Investment Manager it's almost like we have another employee, but just not on campus. The relationship has been more of a partnership than that of a service provider.

Alan Steinberg: Using AppFolio Investment Manager gives us not only credibility, it gives us professionalism. And because of that, our existing investors have wanted to invest more, and we have been able to attract more investors that way.