I'm just regaining my bearings after a whirlwind week in San Diego with ~2,500 AppFolio customers, team members, and vendor partners. It was great to see a lot of familiar faces and make some new friends as well. Property management immersion therapy (AKA, an industry conference) always reenergizes me.
Here are my initial takeaways from the event.
AppFolio spent 2026 improving what they already have
In '24 they introduced Realm-X, and in '25 they added Performers (agents). Rather than headlining another new product, the company chose to spend this year expanding the capabilities of what they already have, a goal I will almost never disagree with.
The average property manager has a lot of room to run
The educational content was aimed at this crowd, and I think that was smart on AppFolio's part. They obviously have granular data on how their own product gets used and decided to focus on the basics this year.
As a property manager, I'd rather use something built into my main property management software than pay for something extra. That only works if I know about it in the first place!
AppFolio is steering customers toward a few primary partners
AppFolio has a small handful of primary strategic partners (eg, Column and Second Nature), and they're choosing to elevate them in very public ways. From the stage to the vendor floor, it's clear that AppFolio isn't afraid to spend reputational and financial capital to steer customers toward their partners.
One can be sure that AppFolio stands to gain from their success. In the case of Second Nature, they're part-owners. In the case of Column, one can only speculate. "Non-primary" partners are left to wonder about their status moving forward.
Systems of record and their stack vendors will always be in tension
System-of-Record platforms (like AppFolio) and their point solution software (Stack) vendors will always be in tension. As AppFolio and its Stack partners continue to expand their capabilities, particularly in the areas that touch transactional revenue, expect friction and eventually fractures.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Stack partner like Property Meld or LeadSimple. AppFolio is on stage bragging about AI-powered product enhancements aimed squarely at eliminating the problem you solve for your customers. It's got to be tough to stomach.
The competitive dynamics are mostly invisible to customers
The competitive dynamics at play right now between AppFolio and its competitors are mostly opaque to their customers. That's not an issue as long as everyone's incentives are aligned (ie, AppFolio wins by making a superior product, which benefits its customers).
But the market for B2B software is evolving and consolidating, and AI is decimating existing moats with unpredictable results. It's not clear to me that delivering a superior product is sufficient to satisfy AppFolio and/or its shareholders as a strategy. There are... other strategies at play which have nothing to do with product quality.
I don't love that for AppFolio's customers. To be honest, I doubt AppFolio execs love it either, but they clearly believe it's required to compete, and maybe that's true. I don't have any answers here, but as a property management operator, I think it's worth paying attention to and thinking carefully about.
AI is in AppFolio's DNA
This is far from the sloppy AI transfusion we're seeing in other platforms. On stage, Dom Beveridge described "AI-First" as a philosophy that "puts AI at the core of decision-making, product design, and workflows, not as a secondary add-on or efficiency tool." I think that's a legitimate characterization of AppFolio.
Crane members and partners showed up in a big way
We had nearly a dozen Crane members and partners on stage throughout the week, including Damon Stratton of Stratton Vantage PM, who got featured in a keynote and their press release. You love to see it.
If you run a PM company and want to be around operators like that, you can learn more about Crane membership here.
Want my real-time thoughts on the product announcements?
Catch my upcoming podcast episode featuring AppFolio's VP of Product Marketing, Daniel Waas, recorded live from the tradeshow floor. He turned the mic around and interviewed me! Full episode here.
And thanks again to the AppFolio team for putting me on stage, and tolerating an opinionated non-customer at your largest annual event.