Chuckanut Property Management & Realty

Have been doing business with them for almost 10 years. First started with Marc the owner then with Rick. I have to say they have been really helpful and always reply. Communication is the key. I referred my friend to them and she has multiple homes for them to take care of. She is pretty happy with them. I now had two homes in Bellingham for them and so far i haven’t had any trouble. That’s what I need is the management company to keep my mind free. They always meet my expectation.

My wife and I own a number of properties in Florida and Bellingham. We have experienced a number of property management companies over the years and there always were disappointments and heartaches both for the tenants, management company and owners — evictions, damaged property, unpaid rents, drug using/​selling renters and disputes from time to time that seemed like they could have been avoided had the initial matching of the tenant, financial status, home care habits and desires of a home been more thoroughly established at the outset. For the 5 years we have been working with Chuckanut we have had a most wonderful experience with happy tenants, no damages, all rents paid, no drug users/​sellers and happy move-​ins and move-​outs by our tenants. We wish we had been with Chuckanut for all of our 25 years of rental management in Bellingham. We wish we had discovered them sooner!

I ended up moving to the Bellingham area as an adult returning to school and did not fully realize to the extent which property management companies in the Bellingham area take advantage of their tenants. I had heard many horror stories of companies like Landmark, and Lakeway to steer clear, but not much on Chuckanut, so hopefully this will help someone else avoid the mistake I made.
Knowing full well that it was extremely important to start the housing search early so that when moving time came in September, we would not be knocked out of consideration to the multitudes of students returning to school, we went about our search in July. We came across a house that fit our needs well, and it just happened to be listed by Chuckanut Property Management. I was leery still but the house seemed perfect so I put up with the coldness of the people within the office, and the general disregard they gave to me because I didn’t believe I’d have to deal with them too much and if it came down to it, I could be noisy if necessary. (All the occasions we dealt with, whether it be phone calls, lease signings, or monetary transactions were met with very unpleasant office personnel.)
Moving day finally came, we received our U-​Haul and packed everything up, stopped by the office, got our keys, finished up any extra work and drove to our new home. The moment we walked into the door was when I really lost all respect for the way they do business. The house was in no way cleaned or prepared for us after the previous tenants who had lived there for four years with children had left. There were huge pink stains in the carpets; thousands of nail holes and staples everywhere. There were multiple doors with holes in them, cracks in the glass, mold in the refrigerator (whose shelf was also completely broken and caved in) markers all over the walls, mold on the blinds, and the list could go on forever. My personal favorite was the can of carrots holding up a portion of the kitchen shelves.
I immediately called Chuckanut, and they transferred me to the property manager Dan whom right from the start was accusatory and condescending. He accused us of moving to early, yet that was the move date given to us and the office got us keys and all. Then he reluctantly said he was sending over maintenance and a cleaning crew to access. Maintenance guy came first (he was the only awesome one in all of this) took a look, agreed it was horrible, called Dan and told him to get to the house because we were upset and had every right to be. (Also cleaning lady shows up at this time and says sorry but Dan said this place was only to be given a two hour clean up time… seriously)
Dan shows up, walks right into the house never once removing his dark sunglasses and begins to defensively blame all of this on us and act in an extremely rude and condescending behavior. He basically told us to get over it because it was merely cosmetic issues and that if we were that bothered to go stay somewhere else for a few days while he looked into or just take our money back and cut the deal. We cut the deal. I have never been treated so completely horrible by anyone in a business setting. No apologies were made, he couldn’t have cared less about the fact that we paid money for a moving truck and had gone to all the effort of packing it up and heading over. When going to the office to get back our deposit he even started to scream at us, threw the check at us, and walked out.
Moral of the story, steer clear of Chuckanut Property Management. They will not help you, they will not be nice to you or treat you with respect, and they definitely have no care for business ethics or morals. They want as much money as they can get and they do not care whom they screw over for it.

If I could give these guys NO stars then I would. What a terrible, disrespectful and by far the most unprofessional company I’ve ever come across. My sister and I moved into an apartment that had not been cleaned or even checked to see if anyone had even moved out and several things were broken and we are STILL doing our dishes in the bathroom because even after calling Chuckanut four times and promising to get it «taken care of» they have yet to do anything. I’m beyond frustrated and I love our new apartment but boy this company did nothing to even make sure they cleaned it or checked it before new renters came in. And might I add that we drove seven hours to get here and had to move in all of our things on a weekend into a dirty apartment. Not cool. Chuckanut is the WORST.

When I was in college I moved around a lot, and I dealt with a lot of home owners and rental companies. Chuckanut made my life easy and my property manager was sympathetic to my needs and when we put in a work order it was done in a timely manner. When we moved out we got most of our deposit back, and nothing that was taken out was a shock. Their lease is very thorough when it comes to explaining what will and what might come out of your deposit. We lived in a very cute little condo off of Meridian and it was everything we thought it would be. We went and viewed it when the previous tenant was living there and he was very friendly and had only good things to say. The rent was also a very reasonable price. If you pay attention to the lease when they go over it with you, and take care of the place, you will not have a problem with Chuckanut. Only problem tenants do. If you are on a first name basis with your property manager it is not necessarily a good thing, and if you flush chicken bones down the toilet, you can’t blame the property management company.

Words cannot express my displeasure in dealing with these people. I would sooner have someone ram a pitchfork through my buttocks than rent from Chuckanut again. «Unprofessional» is the key word here. I’m under the assumption that Chuckanut intentionally hires useless, unintelligent oafs to do their work, because a classroom full of 3^rd graders would make better property managers than this lot.
Firstly, they took over our property after our landlord quit. I decided to stay one more year after my roommates moved out. Somehow they could not comprehend this, and even after I told them multiple (as in about 5) times that I intended to stay, our landlord STILL put the house back on the market.
In addition, it was damn near impossible to communicate with them. Our property manager never once made any effort to meet with us. I have never seen him in person — only the secretaries. And they never returned any of my calls. But they don’t hesitate to call you the second a payment is late.
Next, they refused to refund the deposits to my outgoing roommates because it wasn’t a «complete» move-​out. They said it was up to us to work it out with the new tenants. Essentially, they took the deposits and gave them to the new people because we didn’t all move out together. In the end, I had to ask the incoming people to pay my outgoing roommates $ 475 each. All because Chuckanut was too lazy to do it themselves.
Well, after sorting out that hullabaloo I signed a new lease with new roommates. The first month, by accident, I sent a second payment to them. The property manager somehow noticed this; I instructed him to NOT process the check and hold it for the next month.
Well, the next month rolls around and he calls us, all confused, saying a payment is missing. But he can’t figure out from who. Apparently the people at Chuckanut don’t bother to check who has paid what. He ended up sending ME the ledger so I could determine who had paid. I just want you to think about this for a moment. They asked me, a tenant, to look at their official ledger because they didn’t know what payment was missing. Essentially, I had to do their job for them, which took me no more than a minute to work out. I am not joking when I say 3^rd graders could do a better job than these people.
Anyway, the extra payment I sent was processed anyway, even after I explicitly told them not to do so. My roommates only had to pay half rent because of this. I ended up paying a portion of the missing rent out of my strapped college student pockets to cover for one of my roommates. Thankfully after this event, we haven’t had to speak with them again.
I should also mention that our property manager has still never met with us in person. Through all of these issues, he made no effort to see us, and generally had us speak to the secretaries over the phone because he was «going out» or something. Needless to say, I am moving out next fall and shall never rent from Chuckanut again. An inebriated chimpanzee could conduct better customer service.
Oh, but they fixed the dryer.

They are completely unhelpful. My boyfriend and I are looking to rent a house and found one of their listing online. We called them to set up a time to come in and look at the house. When we got there we were greeted with simply formalities no «hello, thank you for coming in.» We felt unwelcome and that we were an inconvenience for them to deal with. And by deal with I mean hand us the keys and copy our ID and send us to look at the house by ourselves. Which mind you was completely run down and the price was too high for what it is. If you’re looking to rent in Bellingham I recommend going to Integra!!!

I own a business below an apartment managed by Chuckanut Management. A water heater broke upstairs and leaked through my ceiling causing lots of damage and health issues. I called numerous time to the management company and got no assistance. I’ve yet to hear anything back from these bimbos and my only option is to take them to court for all the damage. The tenants above called them at 8 in the morning with an emergency and a plumber didn’t show up until 3 in the afternoon. Thanks Chuckanut!

I rented from Chuckanut for one school year. They gave me 2 keys to the room I rented in a house. One of the keys was for a door that was rarely locked. One night, this particular door was locked and the key did not fit in the lock. I was new to town, and did not know anybody local so I called the emergency number that Chuckanut provided. No one answered and never called me back. I had no choice but to sleep on the stairwell outside of this locked door. I could have been robbed or harmed since I wasn’t shielded from potential intruders. The next morning, I caught a bus to the rental office. The lady working there said «try this key». I had to ASK for transportation back to my apartment. She agreed to drive me. It seemed to me that it didn’t matter that I was kept out of my apartment for an entire night, causing me to miss work the next day. My rent wasn’t even prorated. And to top it off, they decided to install a sunlight in our kitchen’s ceiling WITHOUT INFORMING US. I arrived home one day to find a man sawing into the ceiling while white dust fell onto appliances, dishes, counters, and the floor. It’s like, thanks for all the asbestos, I really appreciate it when I have to clean up my kitchen because YOU failed to do your job correctly! AVOID THIS BUSINESS – THEY DON’T RESPECT YOU!!!

Straight forward, professional and to the point. it’s a shame only people who are mad has given their reviews for Chuckanut PM on Unilocal.Out of all the property management companies I have dealt with in my last 8 years in bellingham, CPM is in a tie for 1^st place along with 2 others. there are some real bad PM companies in bellingham, but come on, chuckanut is not one of them.

I have been looking for a new place of late & like MOST of the property management companies in B’ham, these folks act like they are doing you a big favour just by talking to you.
Though, when they do talk to you, expect them to talk to you like you are an idiot. Im not sure why it is that folks in this business think they can treat people like crap, and that no-​one is going to call them on it, maybe they just assume there is always someone coming through the door. So, heads up, if you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with Chuckanut Property, expect them treat you like crap from the moment you get them on the phone.
If you are a property owner thinking of listing a property with them… ponder this… I quickly decided from the few phone calls I have made to their offices enquiring about a listing, that if I see a new property and it is listed with them, I instantly drop it from my list of potential rentals, because life is too short to put up with the rude.
I know I cant be the only one that has had that experience and made that decision, sadly for the property owners, Im pretty much that dream tenant, never late on the rent, no damage, long term renter that will give your property back in better shape than it was in when I started renting it, but you will never have me as your renter, because I wont put up with having to deal with rude and bad mannered property managers.
I am still looking for a new place to call home, though I am hoping to find a rental that has nothing to do with any property management company (I have yet to have a pleasant experience with any I have called so far, apparently bad manners are the norm for this industry… sad.), you can count on me not renting from these folks.