Our Story
Lakeside Real Estate Services didn’t start as a property management company.
It started the way most real estate businesses do, with a small team, a belief that good properties don’t happen by accident, and a willingness to do the work that most people would rather not think about.
Over the past two decades, we’ve built and managed our own real estate portfolio across West Michigan, starting with residential properties and expanding into multifamily and commercial assets over time. Along the way, we’ve learned things you can only learn by owning. What deferred maintenance really costs. What a bad tenant placement does to a community. What it means to knock on a door and have the person on the other side look genuinely surprised that anyone showed up.
That last one still stays with us.
When we took over Hamilton Park, a 96-unit apartment community that had been severely neglected. We walked into hallways in June that still had salt on the carpet from winter. Tenants were submitting work orders and genuinely not expecting anyone to come. It took years to turn that property around. But it’s something to be proud of now, a place people are glad to live, and glad to live near.
That experience shaped how we think about property management. Not as a transaction, but as a responsibility.
Six years ago, we made a deliberate decision to open our model to other property owners.
Not because we needed to fill a niche. Not because we had extra capacity sitting idle. But because to attract and retain the caliber of staff our own portfolio required, we needed more scale. By taking on third-party management, we could build a stronger team, develop deeper expertise, and run a more efficient operation, one that benefits every property we manage, including our own.
That’s still how we operate today. Our team is well-trained and well-compensated because high turnover costs everyone. Our maintenance staff is in-house because outsourcing everything is how things fall through the cracks. And we’re selective about the properties we take on, because we’d rather manage fewer properties well than many properties poorly.
We focus on multifamily properties of 20 or more units and commercial assets, the kinds of properties that require real management, not a part-time landlord with a clipboard. If you own something in that range and you’re looking for a partner who will treat it like their own, we’d like to talk.
Building our own portfolio
Of Third Party Management
Current Portfolio
What We Believe
Ownership Accountability
We have skin in the game. The majority of our managed portfolio is our own. That means every standard we apply to your property, we apply to ours. There’s no separate set of rules for “our properties” and “client properties.” It’s all managed the same way.
People Over Process
Good management starts with good people. We invest in our team because the quality of care a property receives is directly tied to the people doing the work. We pay our staff well, we train them properly, and we don’t treat turnover as an acceptable cost of doing business.
Honest Over Easy
We’d rather tell an owner something they don’t want to hear than tell them what they want to hear and let a problem compound. If a property needs significant work, we say so. If we’re not the right fit, we say that too. The owners we work with long-term are the ones who appreciate straight answers.
The People Behind Lakeside
Lakeside is a small, focused team — not a large corporate operation. Every person on our staff is here because they care about doing the job well. Our property managers know their properties. Our maintenance team knows our buildings. And when something needs attention, there’s a real person accountable for making sure it happens.
Nick Wyma
Partner, Property Manager
Cory Wyma
Partner
Dave Vanderstelt
Maintenance Supervisor
