Looking for a maintenance person in kcmo

[Jasmine C.]

Hello. I am looking for any advice or help to find a third party maintenance person. I've had a few turn overs and I feel like my property manager is ripping me off with the "expenses and repairs". I want to find a maintenance person to go in and give me estimates. I don't think it's reasonable to be charged 50 bucks to change a light bulb in Kansas City. 

[Amy Webber]

@Jasmine C.

We found some good handymen by asking everyone we could think of - realtors, our real estate attorney, looking at REI pages and memberships posted on the web, reviewing and posting to forums like Bigger Pockets, and so on. Our real estate attorney was a surprisingly wonderful source of contractors. After a bit, the same names would pop up for plumbing or flooring. Then we could use those people and then ask them for references or who they liked to work with (or after). Chaining requests like this helped us find the people we use today for general and more specialized repairs. Initially, it took some time but now I can receive a repair request from my PM and then send a text to the appropriate repair person to handle it. They take care of it, invoice me, and I set up their payment in online bill pay. My contractors get paid in a very timely manner and as a result they always respond to my texts or calls. Costs are much more reasonable now.

My Jason and I had been burned by a property manager that was doing exactly what you were describing for a long distance rental that we had.  Significant upcharges and kickbacks were verified and the problems were not being fixed similar to what @Barry H. describes.  Now that we have a good PM that we can work with, I dread the day that he retires as he seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

Interesting conversation and food for thought as always and best of luck to everybody - Amy Webber