Donna Smith
President, Enclave Property ManagementEstablished: 2012 \ Location: North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota
Why AppFolio: \ No matter the business or industry, 100x growth is only possible with a motivated team and highly efficient processes. An early adopter of AppFolio Property Manager, Enclave Property Management saw such growth over the past decade. Here’s their story.
Multifamily, Commercial, Industrial
Units Managed
4,500+
“When we signed up with AppFolio 10 years ago, we had 48 units, but we knew we were going to 4,500 units in 10 years. And that's why we went with AppFolio — because their culture, their service, and their goals for growth aligned with our values.”
Why property management?
“I never thought I was going to be in property management, but I needed a job when I was going to college and there was a part-time leasing agent position open. So I applied, got the job, and just fell in love with the fast pace of the business and sales, leasing, and customer service.”
Rising through the ranks
“A vertically integrated development, construction and property management company. The process starts with development — they're doing the design and working with the architects to get the project to where it needs to be before handing off the plans to construction. Once built and we get the Certificate of Occupancy, property management takes over to fill and manage the units. It's a vertical process, but we are an investment firm first. So while we’re managing this new property, we have to meet and exceed the expectations of our investors for those distributions that really feed back to the development company. And we do that process over and over again.”
A day in the life
While passion is one piece of the puzzle to success, building a highly efficient operation is another:
“A lot of my day is looking at data and gaining insights to see how we can better meet our goals and objectives, looking at operational efficiencies and how we can improve upon those.”
Technology for a more efficient operation
Delinquency Record
“Every week, we look at our delinquency dashboard to better understand what's going on. ‘Why is this property at this delinquency level versus this property?’ It brings questions to the surface so that we can dig in a little bit further. It creates healthy competition between property managers, and has elevated our collections and decreased our bad debt to a whole new level.”
AppFolio Sites
"Our AppFolio websites include virtual tours so prospects can walk through the apartment and apply online. They go through the screening process and then they get the lease through their tenant portal and pay their deposit. Then the leasing agent contacts them about a move-in date. The automation around that process allows our leasing agents to focus on the prospects that prefer an in-person tour and provide them with a better experience.”
Lisa, the AppFolio AI Leasing Assistant
“With Lisa, our leasing agents are not bogged down by answering all these guest cards, all these leads, all these requests for tours. Lisa handles all of that. They love that they don't have to be answering the phone at night, because that's when people are looking for apartments. Lisa is able to text back right away and get those tours scheduled on the calendar, so the next day the leasing agent comes in and they’ve got a full calendar of tours.”
Smart Maintenance
“Smart Maintenance monitors all work orders that come in, day or night, to see if it's an emergency, and help residents troubleshoot or decide any next steps. Then, the system contacts our preferred vendors. So ultimately, Smart Maintenance can take that work order and handle the situation without contacting anyone on our team. With the nationwide staffing shortage, it's extra support for those team members so they aren't working overtime every single week.”
Community validation
“What gives me a lot of satisfaction is when I'm out in the community. It’s when people ask me where I work, and I say Enclave, and they have great stories to tell about a friend or family member that lives in one of our communities. We really pride ourselves on our reputation and our brand of authenticity.”
Fuel for success
The 2022 AppFolio Hiring and Retention survey report found that that employees who see a path to career advancement are significantly more satisfied in their roles than those who are not — the survey found that 69% of satisfied employees see opportunities for career growth, while just 27% of employees who are not satisfied see opportunities for career growth. So while regular performance reviews are one way to go about it, Enclave takes this idea to another level.
“Every single position has key performance indicators and different metrics we look at. And that's why AppFolio is great, because you can get that data really quickly, especially around leasing, property management, and maintenance positions.”
“I'm glad that AppFolio is able to create efficiencies through automation so that my team can have more time to talk and connect.”
Donna Smith
President, Enclave Property Management
Space for more 
In the omni-connected, always-on world of today, it’s easy to bring the day’s work home, for better or worse. And when productivity tools at the office don’t live up to expectations, worry and frustration can begin to creep in. Not the case for Donna and the team at Enclave:
“AppFolio has allowed me to have space for more connections. Since I’m able to see the metrics right within the system, before I go home, I'm reviewing those reports quickly, and then I'm able to shut that part of my brain off. I feel good about this, or I know where we're at because I have the data in front of me. I'm able to watch that movie with my little girl or go to the park with the family, go see my niece and nephew, and just really enjoy the outdoors in North Dakota. You only get about four or five months of good weather. If you can go home and take a walk around the block and not think about work and not worry about a property issue, it's great.”
“We're able to focus on more meaningful work, like creating connections with our customers and resident retention because AppFolio automates those mundane processes.”
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