In this introductory video, Mendell Gosnell, the owner and founder of Centurion Real Estate Management, shares his personal journey into real estate and the evolution of his company. He recounts how, at age 28, a mentor who was his landlord persuaded him to pause a prospective career with the Portland Police Department and explore real estate investing. Starting with hands‑on work—renovations, landscaping, and property repairs—he learned about financing, cap rates, creative deal sourcing, and earned a broker’s license. Over time, his focus shifted to property management, leading him to establish Centurion. The firm has grown to a 60‑plus employee organization with three branch offices serving the Mid‑Willamette Valley, managing roughly 2,000 units ranging from single‑family homes to multifamily and commercial properties. Gosnell emphasizes his unique investor‑mindset approach, claiming it adds value for clients by combining insights from investing, maintenance, and capital improvements—something he believes many other managers lack. The video concludes with a call to action inviting property owners to contact Centurion for management services.
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Hi, my name's Mendell Gosnell. I'm the owner and founder of Centurion Real Estate Management. I am an active real estate investor, a little bit lazy, kind of passive actually, now that I think about it. But I do consistently invest in real estate, kind of how I got my start. I got into real estate when I was about 28 years old. I had a previous landlord who saw my hard work ethic and put me to work and said that they wanted to teach me all about real estate. I was currently looking at going into the police department, was applying in various locations and was pretty well through the hiring process in the Portland Police Department, and he convinced me to hold on a little bit longer and see what real estate could do. He helped me get my start in investing in my first couple deals, and the rest is kind of history. Started managing his portfolio of properties and learning the ropes doing a whole bunch of work on the properties, landscaping, repairing rotten bathroom floors, and putting down flooring, flipping homes, and doing all kinds of things like that, learning about the investing side, loans, cap rates, what it takes to finance, do creative financing, how to find deals, how to source deals, just building a network, learning things from the, the side of the title company, the lender, things that are important to them. And then I got my broker's license, did a couple deals, but really gravitated towards the property management side of things. And so formed Centurion and began to manage professionally slow going in the beginning. It's really been slow going ever since. It's just, if you're consistent with something for 20 years, I think you will force success eventually. Now we've got a really good organization with 60+ individuals, 3 branch offices in the mid-Willamette Valley. We manage around 2,000 doors, single-family homes, homes, small plexes, larger multifamily, some commercial, and really enjoy doing property management and really enjoy bringing the investor mindset to it. I really think that's a value for our clients. I've really done everything from the ground up. I started, again, I did investing. Was a real estate agent, was an on-site manager for a time, helped renovate a number of properties, mine and others. And so just being able to wear every hat and work from the ground up and have an understanding from the investor's side, have that mindset and understand the maintenance side and the capital improvement side in preparing a property, maintaining a property and preparing it for sale, the differences there really gives me a lot of insight and brings a lot of value to the clients. So I'm really excited about that. I don't see that as being something that a lot of other property managers or property management companies bring to the table for their investors. Yeah, that's a little bit about me. Again, Centurion Real Estate Management, full-service property management company serving the Mid-Willamette Valley. If you're interested in having a conversation, having us manage your property, we'd love to talk with you. Give us a call today, we'll show you what we can do for you. Thanks for watching.
