Most small real estate operators manage their finances by looking at what is in the bank. Money in is income, money out is expenses, and the question every Monday is how do I survive the next ninety days. Alex Lopez, CPA calls that looking in the rear-view mirror, and he spent more than a decade learning what the alternative looks like from the inside.

Alex started in real estate right out of high school during the South Florida boom, and he was in his early twenties when it all came down. He lost the properties he had bought. Going back to finish his business degree, he hit the two accounting courses every Florida business major has to take, and found that the numbers were a language that explained his own mistakes better than the market crash did. He switched his major, went straight into a global firm, asked to be put on the real estate clients, and drew a $4 billion hotel REIT as his first account. Corporate came next, then helping take a company public, then his own shop.

The thing he brought back is the spine of this conversation. The most powerful things those firms do are perfectly doable at any size. It comes down to structure, skill and prioritization, and to somebody actually being assigned the work.

In this episode:

• What a fractional CFO actually does that a bookkeeper does not
• Why you should run your company as though it were already much larger
• The windshield versus the rear-view mirror, and why most accounting only looks backward
• KPIs and plans: NOI, rent per square foot, CAM, occupancy, and how to pick yours
• Reverse-engineering a business plan into a debt and equity structure
• The free playbook hiding in plain sight: the 10-K filings public companies in your field are legally required to publish, KPIs included
• Why the skill set changes completely at every revenue tier

Plus the Final Five, a mentor named Anatoly, and the one mistake Alex committed to never making again.

About Alex Lopez, CPA
Alex Lopez, CPA is the Managing Partner of Osher CPAs, a South Florida firm providing accounting, CFO services, financial due diligence, and tax strategy to real estate investors, property managers, and growing businesses. He works primarily with owners in the low seven-figure to mid eight-figure range.

Connect with Alex: alexlopezcpa.com

This week's book: Get Scalable: The Operating System Your Business Needs To Run and Scale Without You by Ryan Deiss

Chapters

00:00 The big-firm playbook is available to the rest of us
 00:45 Welcome to Real Estate Underground
 01:40 Meet Alex Lopez, CPA
 02:00 Growing up in the South Florida boom
 02:45 The 2008 crash, and losing everything in his early twenties
 04:45 Stumbling into accounting: the language of business
 05:50 Why the global firms only hire you straight out of school
 06:30 Canvassing commercial property the old-fashioned way
 08:15 Asking to be put on the real estate clients
 08:45 First client: a $4 billion hotel REIT
 09:30 Into the corporate world, then taking a company public
 11:00 Opening his own shop
 11:35 What a fractional CFO actually is
 12:30 More than a decade inside: it is structure, skill and prioritization
 13:30 Think of yourself as a much larger company
 14:30 The windshield, not the rear-view mirror
 16:00 KPIs and plans: where a CFO starts
 17:00 Reverse-engineering the plan into financials
 17:50 The metrics that matter: NOI, rent per square foot, CAM, occupancy
 20:00 Debt versus equity, and what you actually need to raise
 21:20 Your neighbor's daughter who does the bookkeeping
 21:50 The skill set changes at every revenue tier
 22:45 The free playbook: read the 10-Ks of public companies in your field
 24:45 They share their playbook because legally they have to
 25:00 Ed's story: running a $1M company like a $100M company
 27:00 You miss 100% of the targets you don't set
 28:50 The Final Five
 29:00 Purpose: the high-rises of Medellin
 29:45 Best advice: intentional hats, from a mentor named Anatoly
 30:40 The mistake: selling property
 33:50 Nobody regrets holding a property too long
 35:40 This week's book: Get Scalable by Ryan Deiss
 37:00 The E-Myth, Buy Back Your Time, and who he serves
 39:30 How he defines success
 40:20 Where to find Alex

Real Estate Underground
Hosted by Ed Mathews of Clark St Capital. New episodes every Tuesday.
clarkst.com/podcast

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