First Companies

Buy, build or lease, our Real Estate team presents available options to ensure the right space for your business. Our Construction services include ground-up, renovations and remodels to build the ideal physical space for your business. From office refreshes to ongoing maintenance, our Property Management services ensure professional spaces that represent your brand well.

When Jerry Baker founded First Real Estate in 1968, he made the transition from selling residential homes to commercial real estate. Jerry saw the need and opportunity in land development and began developing much of the land around the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. In the years that followed, First Companies continued to construct many buildings for industrial/manufacturing businesses desiring to locate in that area. To better control the quality and timing of projects for his clients, Jerry expanded his business to include construction management.

First Companies has gained a deep expertise in property management as the portfolio of properties we oversee and maintain continues to grow. With high standards for quality and service excellence, the property management team uses a highly effective, proactive approach to ensuring professional, functional buildings for the hundreds of businesses and organizations that rely on us for well-maintained, productive work environments. Staying on top of day-to-day building maintenance can be a distraction to your core business, and very time-consuming without the knowledge, skills or staff needed to complete critical tasks.

Our commercial construction team is ready to help you Build, Renovate, Remodel, Refresh, and Redefine your space to meet new and changing business needs. We've created specialized construction teams who are skilled and dedicated to meeting your unique building requirements in Michigan and surrounding areas. With over 50-years of experience, the growth of our construction management services has come from the many customers whose expectations we've met or exceeded. They refer us, and come back to us, because of our honesty, integrity, work quality, and mission to serve.

First Companies partners with some of the most talented interior designers in the area to ensure your new space provides a professional, productive environment where your business can thrive. Whether you need some initial consulting or a little help making basic materials and color selections to managing major renovations or ground-up construction projects, we'll help you find the right designer for your project. All project managers have a great deal of experience working with various interior designers and will ensure good collaboration with everyone involved.

Like many of our clients, we believe in the importance of being environmentally responsible whenever possible. In our constructionmethodologies, we incorporategreen building practices that go beyond energy efficiency and the use of recycled materials - taking a more holistic look at a building's function and the affect an environment has on its occupants. This is often where the interior design of the space comes into play as well.

From land development and commercial real estate, to construction management, ground-up projects, building renovation and remodels, interior design, and property management, First Companies offers the deep expertise and decades of experience to maximize your investment as well as ensure a great space where your business will thrive. When it comes to real estate, construction and property management, we don't know of another company in Western Michigan with the depth and breadth of expertise we offer all under one roof.

Leveraging the knowledge and "connections" we have in construction, the real estate team is highly skilled at identifying and helping you to assess many potential scenarios - build, buy or lease - to determine the best options for your business. For example, we often help clients locate and develop land, and construct new buildings to meet their immediate needs, with additional square footage available to lease to other tenants. This option provides additional income to offset the initial construction costs as well as ensures space for future growth.