The number of connected properties
has grown from 500 to 40K
The challenge
Re-architect a vacation platform to enable real-time data flow
Lake began as a classic vacation rental marketplace where guests could book properties and hosts managed them. But once the platform launched, the team uncovered a critical insight: most "hosts" were actually professional property managers overseeing dozens or even hundreds of listings. And unlike homeowners, they had no interest in filling out forms manually.
Uploading property details one by one wasn't attractive to property managers, who relied on PMSs (Property Management Systems) to centralize listings, prices, and availability to sync them with platforms like Airbnb or Booking.com.
Lake's initial platform, built as a WordPress monolith, simply couldn't integrate with dozens of PMSs. Even with a middleware like Calry, the data either failed to update or broke entirely. Potential users walked away.
So Lake's CEO reached out to Brocoders to re-architect the system from the ground up and finally unlock the data flow that property managers required.
“The main issue was that property pricing and availability data didn’t synchronize. We realized that trying to build on top of a WordPress monolith was no longer the right way to go forward.”
David Ciccarelli
CEO and founder of Lake
Obstacles
Monolithic architecture
The entire platform was built on WordPress, with multiple plugins that couldn't synchronize with PMSs.
Integration with 40+ PMSs
The platform had to connect with at least 40-50 systems, supporting real-time data exchange.
Tight deadlines
Property managers refused to use the platform until the data sync issue was solved, which meant we had to act fast.
The solution
Intuitive vacation platform
In just 3 months, we rebuilt the platform's back-end and updated the interface based on the client's designs. To preserve SEO performance, we kept only the content-driven pages on WordPress and developed the core product as a standalone web application.
We rebuilt Lake into a modern, user-friendly web app tailored for property managers and guests. Core features like real-time booking, dynamic pricing sync, and PMS integrations were developed from scratch.
Seamless guest experience
Guests sign in, explore listings with smart filters and an interactive map, and view detailed property pages with real-time availability. They can save favorites, get instant quotes, and book stays with Stripe payments. All bookings and personal details are easily accessible in their profile.
All-in-one workspace for managers
Property managers handle everything from one dashboard. They can sync listings via PMS, track bookings and payments, update their profile, and set up payout preferences with minimal manual work.
“Andrei, Brocoders’ CEO, took the most amount of time to understand the problem, and this is really important. He was the only one of 150 vendors who asked to speak with the integration partner that we were working with. ”
David Ciccarelli
CEO and founder of Lake
The process
Brocoders re-architected the monolithic rental marketplace into a global vacation platform
We started the project with a team of five: a Product Manager, one Front-end Developer, two Back-end Developers, and a part-time QA Engineer, while DevOps support was provided on demand.
The team structure allowed us to move quickly without inflating the budget, and still deliver production-ready features every two weeks.
Step 1. We made a deep dive into the problem and set up a proper DevOps pipeline to prevent live-site issues
We kicked off the project with a deep dive into Lake's current state and the core technical challenge.
“We started with a call with the CEO, then dove into the details with Eugeniy, the Product & Project Manager. We went through a spreadsheet covering every single component. That level of detail and understanding the problem gave me great confidence.”
David Ciccarelli
CEO and founder of Lake
One of the first red flags was the absence of a staging environment. Developers were pushing changes directly from local machines to production. That meant any mistake instantly affected the live site and there was no way to safely test features or fixes before going public.
We addressed this immediately by introducing a proper development pipeline:
- A GitHub repository for source control
- A dedicated staging environment for internal testing
- Controlled and secure deployments to production
This setup gave the team a foundation to build and iterate on the platform.
Step 2. Our Back-end Developers replaced the WordPress monolith with a custom-built solution
Once the development workflow was stable, we focused on the platform's biggest bottleneck: the WordPress monolith. Lake's monolithic structure couldn't support real-time integrations with PMSs to transmit booking data to property managers. To solve this, we re-architected the entire platform, separating the CMS from the core web application.
Instead of migrating everything, we kept the homepage, blog, and city pages on WordPress to maintain SEO rankings, and built a fully custom web app from scratch using Next.js and NestJS.
This way, we preserved Lake's organic traffic while enabling the platform growth.
Step 3. Together with the Calry team, we fixed data synchronization issues
Lake had already integrated Calry, a middleware connecting booking platforms with PMSs. While this gave them access to a wide range of systems, the data didn't sync properly.
From day one, we partnered with the client to resolve this. Our team initiated contact with Calry, becoming the first vendor to actively engage with their API team. We communicated twice a week to ask questions, report edge cases, and work toward a stable integration.
After several weeks of collaboration, we resolved the core synchronization issues. Our developers ensured pricing and availability data were always up-to-date, so managers could list their properties on the platform.
Step 4. Brocoders added a proximity-based solution to show nearby properties
To help guests discover properties more easily, Lake introduced destination pages for popular locations like cities, lakes, and national parks. But rather than manually curating which listings appear on each page, we built a proximity-based system.
“What I wanted was to show nearby properties on specific destination pages. Brocoders created a smart formula that pulls in all listings within a 100 km radius of each destination. It doesn’t rely on addresses; it’s a mathematical solution that works automatically.”
David Ciccarelli
CEO and founder of Lake
With this feature in place, site visitors instantly see relevant listings, and the Lake team can easily identify when new destination pages should be created based on property density in a given area.
Step 5. We made code optimization & performance fixes to achieve 210% spike in website activity
Before the rebuild, Lake’s WordPress monolith struggled with speed. Pages loaded slowly, which led to high bounce rates and frustrated users.
Our team conducted a full technical audit and rolled out a series of front-end and performance optimizations.
The results were impressive:
- +40% overall visitors
- +146% repeat users
- +39% sessions per engaged user
- +210% total tracked events
Step 6. Our team implemented a flexible listing publication module
Some managers didn’t want to publish every property on every booking channel. Since each PMS can be connected to multiple travel agencies like Booking.com or Airbnb, they needed precise control over where each property was listed.
To address this, we built a module allowing hosts to choose where each property appears: Lake, Booking.com, Airbnb, etc.
This helped prevent double-bookings and match each property to the most effective platforms.
Step 7. Our developers integrated ChatGPT for smart content generation
To reduce manual work for hosts, we connected ChatGPT to generate appealing and SEO-friendly property descriptions. Hosts can review and edit drafts before publishing, saving time without losing quality.
What's next?
We continue to support Lake as their long-term tech partner, helping them scale and evolve the platform. Right now, we’re enhancing search across multiple sources and developing a back-end admin panel for property managers.
What started as a North American platform has quickly grown into a global vacation marketplace. Together, we’re building a platform where guests can easily find their next travel experience and managers can list hundreds of properties worldwide.
“It's good to acknowledge how far we've come in just a few short months. We'd worked with several other teams before, but they couldn’t pull off what you [Brocoders] did. You're very gifted and talented.”
David Ciccarelli
CEO and founder of Lake
Key Project Outcomes
Re-built done
in 3 months
Re-built done in 3 months
We re-architected the platform in the tight timeline to attract property managers ASAP.
40K properties
The number of properties synced via PMSs grew from 500 to 40K, with 6 PMS partnerships.
+146%
repeat users
+146% repeat users
After we optimized the website, its performance boosted, and visitors keep coming back.
Result
Our team helped Lake grow from a basic WordPress site into a global platform that serves both property managers and guests.
BEFORE
AFTER
Limited, monolithic WordPress website
Custom web app ready to scale
No PMS data synchronization
40K properties integrated
Managers refused to use the platform
80x growth in added properties
Poor performance, high bounce rates
+40% overall visitors and +146% repeat users
No AI features
ChatGPT integration for enhanced property descriptions
No flow for property managers to control bookings
Intuitive admin panel with all-in-one dashboard
Only manual process of adding nearby properties on destination pages
Smart proximity feature that automatically shows nearby properties in specific areas
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