Goudreau Management was founded in 1948 by George J. Goudreau Sr., who had already been in the home building business for more than twenty years, was just starting the development and construction of several hundred suites of new apartments and as the initial properties were about to come ‘on line’ he was focusing on who he should hire to do his property management. Known for his foresight and innovative thinking, he soon realized that he wanted to take a much different approach to property management than what the typical third-party fee property managers of the time offered or were equipped to provide. As a result Goudreau Management would ultimately become the first large “owner-management” company in northern Ohio.

His philosophy about and approach to property management was quite simple.... he strongly believed that the best rental agents typically possessed good ‘people’ and sales skills but weren’t necessarily going to be good service people, while on the other hand good service people typically possessed good technical and maintenance skills but weren’t necessarily going to have the best ‘people’ or ‘sales’ skills. He realized that in order to provide the most professional customer leasing and management services as well as to provide the best customer maintenance services, that he would have to break the ‘traditional’ property management business model and create a new Professional Property Management “model”.

He also realized that people have many different needs, tastes, values and beliefs and when put together living in a close community such as neighbors in an apartment, conflicts may develop between residents, particularly if the management fails to carefully check on its rental applicants before making their leasing decisions. Therefore we take great care to verify everything we are legally permitted to about each rental applicant before making our leasing decisions. Our goal is to have a residential community where “neighbors become friends”.

While our founder realized his new style of Professional Property Management might not be the cheapest compared to the ‘traditional’ style that was being offered by others, he also knew his residents would ultimately benefit and, with constant attention, the investment property itself would remain attractive and desirable much longer. We believe this philosophy is why today we have many residents who have called our apartment communities “home” not for just a year or two but for several decades.

Today we have taken his simple tenets of what the words “Professional Property Management” should mean and have applied those same simple principles and practices to not only apartment management but also to office and retail property management.

Since our beginnings we have had the privilege of providing quality rental housing for thousands of Greater Cleveland families.
We hope you also will give our team of professionals the opportunity to fill your family’s housing needs.