Hello! My husband and I just bought a tri-plex in Oak Harbor, WA. We are looking to make connections in the area--particularly in need of a good handyman or woman, building contractors, lawn care, plumber, electrician, etc. Would appreciate your recommendations in the Oak Harbor / Whidbey / Anacortes / Mount Vernon area.

@Christine Stone Congrats on your tri-plex, I hear Oak Harbor is a great place to invest! We are in the Anacortes and MV areas, and love Skagit County.

I have had the hardest time finding recommendations of folks in the area, I'd suggest going to Frontier Building Supplies in Oak Harbor or Anacortes and looking at their board of business cards, or asking the sales folks. We have gotten good leads that way. I've overheard that MY EX NEEDS THE MONEY is a good handyman. I just can't forget a name like that, haha.

Also, we have a Skagit investors meeting and hope to get more handyman folks in attendance, though they are all so busy. But want to extend that invite out to you!

Congrats Christine!

Frontier building supply is a great resource as mentioned. They have a board right by the entrance where tradesman can put up business cards.

Out of curiosity do you mind sharing the numbers and how you found the triplex. I've been looking in Oak Harbor, Anacortes, Sedro Woolley, Mount Vernon, and the other cities in this area for about a while. I can't find anything that cash flows positively in my price range ($300k at this point). Everything I look at is cash flow negative.

I go to the Bellingham Investors Meetup group, am hoping to attend the Anacortes meet up tomorrow,  I own a property services company (and two rental properties) and have done plenty of work in O.H.  

@Christine Stone Congrats on the triplex! Of the services you are wondering about, I can make a couple of recommendations. Please let me know afterwards if you have any negative interactions -- I'm always looking to learn more about my team.

For gardening, we use Heather's Home and Garden.  They don't have a website, but you can search for them and find it pretty quickly.

For pest control, we had a great experience with All Island Pest Control. There were some rats in a crawlspace they got rid of.

Tim G Handyman did a great job fixing a fence problem and was able to keep the costs down.

Broadview Appliances checked out some appliances and did some repairs -- it was good work, but more expensive than I would've liked. Still, contractor work can be 2 out of the 3: good, fast, and cheap.

Would you be interested in sharing some details of your triplex experience? What agent, where it is? I'm interested in getting into multifamily in the area as well, so anything you'd care to share would be excellent.