Published on February 5th, 2025
By Megan Eales Monroe
While managing affordable housing presents a significant challenge for most property management teams, it is also an area where there is a major need for capable, efficient, and experienced managers to serve people in need of an affordable place to call home. With constantly changing market conditions, regulations, and compliance requirements, it’s important to stay on top of the latest developments in the affordable space, so we reached out to two of AppFolio’s foremost experts on affordable housing to bring us up to speed.
As leader of AppFolio’s affordable housing team, Josefin Graebe was instrumental in driving the development and implementation of innovative solutions to support affordable housing initiatives. She has recently taken on a new role as VP of Product, Domains, leading a team focused on deepening the connections within AppFolio’s core product functionalities (such as accounting, leasing, and maintenance) to serve the needs of our mixed portfolio customers.
Colleen Winship is the Industry Principal for Affordable Housing at AppFolio, with 10 years of experience in affordable housing. Prior to her career at AppFolio, Colleen worked at an affordable housing property management firm that oversaw multiple facets of real estate, specializing in operations and compliance. She has Certified Occupancy Specialist and Blended Occupancy Specialist designations.
In this interview with Josefin and Colleen, you’ll learn what’s on their minds for the industry in 2025 and what AppFolio is doing to support affordable housing in the US.
Entering into 2025, what are the biggest trends or changes on the horizon that will affect affordable housing management?
Colleen Winship: One of the biggest trends is the rising insurance costs, which can really hit affordable housing owners hard because they have rent caps due to program requirements. Another major priority is the need to create more supply. We’re seeing a lot of bipartisan support for tax reforms that would support the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which is essential for increasing the supply of affordable housing.
Josefin Graebe: Housing supply is struggling to keep up with the rising demand, exacerbated by the pandemic and economic factors like inflation. Home prices and rents have surged, and new construction has been delayed, leading to critically low affordable housing supply and long waitlists for some programs. Another trend on the horizon is technology, particularly AI, which is becoming increasingly important to streamline processes and boost efficiency. In fact, according to AppFolio research, 46% of affordable housing property management companies are looking to adopt new technologies to improve operational efficiency.
Why is AppFolio focused on building technology to support affordable housing management in 2025?
Josefin Graebe: Affordable housing is more than just another property type for us. Property managers play an active role in giving back to their communities, and we are excited to support them in their mission. Our team’s mission is to strengthen communities of opportunity through innovative affordable housing products. Property managers spend over a third (39%) of a typical 40-hour week on ‘busywork,’ and they believe they could save nearly half of their workweek (41%) with better technology. This time can be better spent supporting their residents and communities.
How do the values that AppFolio holds inform our commitment to supporting affordable housing management?
Colleen Winship: At AppFolio, one of our core values is “Build trust every day.” One of the most important ways we do this for our customers who manage affordable housing is by staying informed and on top of the evolving landscape when it comes to regulatory changes. For example, with implementing changes to comply with HOTMA, the Housing Opportunity through Modernization Act, we know our customers will look to AppFolio for guidance. We are staying close to industry leaders who oversee these changes. We continue our outreach to customers to make sure we are staying on top of notices and regulatory changes so we can deliver a product that instills trust in our customers.
HOTMA continues to be a present challenge for many affordable housing property management teams. How are property managers and software providers like AppFolio preparing for implementation?
Colleen Winship: HOTMA continues to be in a limbo period. As of today, HUD programs have been given a July 1, 2025 deadline but are lacking key notices, forms and technical specifications from HUD to make meaningful progress towards that deadline. AppFolio is committed to do what we can to meet the deadline. Both property managers and software vendors are in a holding period, waiting for more guidance from HUD. Managers overseeing properties that include both HUD and LIHTC properties face a unique challenge. Some Housing Finance Agencies have already implemented HOTMA and are moving full steam ahead, while HUD’s rollout has been much slower. This means following two very different regulatory approaches for one property, or even one unit, which could lead to frustration and confusion for the property management staff.
What are some other significant challenges that property management teams who have affordable units in their portfolios face? Does this differ between teams who specialize in affordable housing management versus those who manage a conventional portfolio?
Colleen Winship: Staffing remains a significant issue. Managing affordable housing is challenging because, on top of the normal tenant management responsibilities, there is also a requirement to know the affordable housing program compliance requirements. Maintaining compliance is difficult due to the changing rules and how they work when in conjunction with multiple funding sources. Because supply is limited, developers often ‘gap finance’ a deal, meaning there are multiple different programs at one project, which creates a larger compliance burden for managers.
Josefin Graebe: I completely agree with Colleen on the compliance burden on property managers — we know their number one challenge is compliance. Each program has its own requirements. HUD programs, such as Project Based Section 8, are mostly income-based, whereas Low Income Housing Tax Credits are rent and income restricted. Each has its own complexities, but with HUD programs, residents are responsible for reporting any income changes, which can lead to frequent rent adjustments. LIHTC programs have fixed rent restrictions and often don’t fluctuate during a lease term.
Employee training and retention are also major issues. Affordable housing programs and compliance requirements are complex, and it takes a lot of time to onboard and train new employees. Plus, rules and regulations can change, and it’s important to stay on top of any changes and provide ongoing training.
Complex operations are another challenge. Many property management companies that manage both market-rate units and affordable housing units use different compliance software for their affordable housing units. This increases complexity, especially on the accounting side, and is not the best experience for employees.
How does technology help property management teams to meet those challenges? Does technology also play a role in increasing the supply of affordable housing to renters?
Colleen Winship: The adoption of technology can ease some of the burden a property manager might feel. From leasing to resident engagement to compliance management, technology can save time on many of a property manager’s day-to-day tasks, allowing them more time to focus on the residents. Adopting technology can also reduce operational costs, which could encourage developers to re-think the financial constraints for building more affordable housing.
Josefin Graebe: Applying, certifying, and recertifying for affordable housing involves a lot of documentation—similar to applying for a mortgage or filing taxes. Software can help streamline these processes. For example, the Tenant Income Certification (TIC) form is the source of truth for tenant eligibility. Being able to generate the TIC form in your property management software largely reduces human error and manual tasks. It also creates guardrails to help managers determine qualification.
Additionally, since the TICs are embedded in AppFolio, this makes reporting tenant events extremely easy. Property managers can say goodbye to double entry for tenant events, since the platform is able to submit XML Reporting to nearly all state agencies.
Another way to streamline operations is to manage your entire portfolio on one platform. Many businesses manage their affordable housing units on a different system than their market rate units, which increases complexity—especially on the accounting side—and is not the best experience for employees.
Can you share AppFolio’s focus areas for product development supporting affordable housing in 2025?
Josefin Graebe: In addition to investing in subsidy management, certification management, and compliance management, we are exploring opportunities to use AI safely to streamline affordable housing management processes. For instance, making the application and certification process more efficient and responsive to residents’ needs.
To learn more about affordable housing management best practices and technology, start here.
