HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown
Are you intrigued by Commercial Real Estate? Join Heather Ewing, CCIM each week as she dives into CRE trends, Deals, and Developments throughout Madison, WI. Learn the crucial role of Mindset in CRE and Marathons! Success leaves Clues.
HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown
Ep. 63 Gita Faust - Smart Accounting Creates Wealth in Commercial Real Estate
Money isn't just about what's in the bank—it's about the mindset that gets it there and keeps it growing. Gita Faust, owner of Fast Track Consulting, reveals how proper accounting transforms commercial real estate profitability beyond simple bookkeeping.
Gita's journey began unexpectedly when a devastating car accident left her disabled for nearly five years. Unable to perform basic physical tasks, she pivoted to virtual bookkeeping in 2001, eventually specializing in real estate accounting. Today, she helps investors understand the critical gap in their financial strategy: what happens after you purchase a property.
"People are good at analyzing whether to buy a property," Gita explains, "but after that, it falls apart." This insight highlights a blindspot many real estate professionals face—they focus intensely on acquisition without equal attention to post-purchase financial management. The smallest decisions compound over time, potentially impacting profitability by millions. Even choosing between Uber or Lyft represents the analytical mindset needed for success.
While discussing emerging technology, Gita offers a practical perspective on AI in real estate accounting: "AI is good to a certain point." It can analyze single-property financials but struggles with complex scenarios like multi-property expense segmentation or distinguishing between expenses and capital items. The human touch remains essential for comprehensive financial management.
Ready to transform how you handle your real estate finances? Connect with Gita at fasttracconsulting.com or call 215-579-1465 to discover how changing your accounting approach can dramatically improve your investment outcomes.
Welcome to Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown. I have a terrific guest for you yet again today. It is Gita Faust and she is the owner of Fast Track Consulting. Gita welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you, heather. It's a pleasure coming here, being with you having a brief chat to share how one and all of us can attain what we need in our CRE business.
Speaker 1:And so let's dig into it a little bit. Right, I've known you I think is it about six months or longer on LinkedIn. We've been connecting and I've been learning about the way you help business owners and really dig into the numbers and even much more beyond that with mindset and things. But for our audience that may not be as familiar with you, share a little bit more about yourself.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, where do I start? So let's make it a little bit shorter, because we don't have all day I was.
Speaker 2:I graduated from accounting. Since ninth grade we had to choose a faculty. You know whether you want to take science, accounting or history, ba, arts, right. So I selected accounting and that continued throughout my journey, even though I dabbled a little bit into programming, which I loved. But I didn't like the cold. You know the rooms had to be really cold back home in India, so I used to get sick very often. So I quit that and I went back, jumped into accounting, and it has taken me from day one for my ninth grade till today, from day one for my ninth grade till today.
Speaker 2:A point came in where I had to make a decision what I want to do, because of an accident I had incurred and it left me disabled for a long time and I decided I'm going to go with accounting and bookkeeping started in 2001. And I was virtual at that point as well, so for me it was nothing. Being virtual was not a new endeavor, you know, a task that I had to take over, and since then I started my business in 2001 and 2005,. I found my niche in real estate and that is because one of my clients pushed me into it. And you know, one thing has escalated to another. I have courses in QuickBooks, courses how to for real estate, almost all segmentations in the real estate industry, almost all segmentations in the real estate industry. We offer accounting and bookkeeping services. You can find nuggets of advice on each of my LinkedIn posts out there. We connected on LinkedIn and here I am today.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So what's interesting and what piqued my attention is that the accident. So I had a pivotal accident too. I'm interested what happened and how did that shift your trajectory or your mindset?
Speaker 2:Okay. So it's a story that it's worth telling because you can see different professions, how they all work out. I was pregnant seven months and I got hit. We was stopped at a traffic light. I mean sorry, we were stopped at a railroad track and the person behind me was reading a newspaper and and he just escalated and hit me from behind and that gave me a big shock. Doctors couldn't do any testing nothing with me, because I was pregnant, of course you know that left me disabled.
Speaker 2:Uh, for a long, long time I could not carry any weight with my right hand. Uh, I could not carry a cup of empty mug from the dining table to the kitchen. I was that bad. It took me almost five years to recover where I could sit for half an hour to an hour at a time. That's unreal.
Speaker 2:And the profession. That person at the back was a lawyer, so of course he won the case Anyway, but that after five years my son was perfect. He was great. He has his master's in emergency management and is a captain at a station right now, firehouse in Warrington, but he's doing great Perfect family. You'll see pictures of me posting of his prince and princess all the time.
Speaker 1:Definitely.
Speaker 2:And that pivot, that time had come. I had to make a decision. Which my parents always taught me is saying whatever you do, you need to study and you need to learn to stand on your own feet. He knew that was very important for me, so I decided to start something that I knew well and was embedded in me since my childhood and share with other businesses how they can be profitable. Just looking at the revenue is not profitable, you know. You have to look at the whole picture, what you have. So I started part-time and one thing escalated to another. I first started as a bookkeeping business and that bookkeeping business. I sent out 15 or 20 letters. I got a couple clients right away In like a month. I was surprised and I'm like, oh my God, this is good right.
Speaker 2:And then as you know, as in every profession, we all strive to learn and we yearn for knowledge.
Speaker 2:We learn we use it to how to be better. You know we yearn to. How do we excel and give our clients or prospects more than what we know and they know right. So started, restarted, educating myself in all different aspects of the industry real estate industry as well as the accounting industry. So that's how I get started and that's my story and that pursuance that I had to do, something that was instilled, you know, in me and I love challenges. You give me a challenge, I'll take it, you know.
Speaker 1:That's why your post this morning, I just loved it and it's it's a different message and I think that's also what I find refreshing, because from the outside and I'm always like thank God for cost segregation you know all these different ways of elevating a business through the planning, really understanding the source of the issue so it can be fleshed out, versus just bookkeeping, like they are in great contrast and a lot of people, I think, don't realize that. But there's the Gita twist of it, of the mindset, which is interesting because spending we all have our habits good, bad and indifferent and in you being able to have those tough conversations with people, that's what can truly turn a business around, and I think people have never thought of the level of power that you can help people take back within their own businesses.
Speaker 2:True, true. And you need an analytic mind as well, because in the real estate industry, as you can see, people are good at analyzing to a point where they are ready to make the decision to whether buy that, purchase the property, you know, or let it go. Right, we have some wins, we have some losers, and they are good at that, but after that it falls apart, right.
Speaker 1:And that's where you step in and shine Right.
Speaker 2:And you know how do you see?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, it's the same concept. Like my, one of my post was, you know, deciding whether to go with Uber or Lyft, right, deciding whether to go with Uber or Lyft right. And that penny your analytic mind starts even with the smallest expense, which can escalate to millions and billions of dollars.
Speaker 1:Right. So following the breadcrumbs, and especially as you grow and scale, that's where the simple Uber or Lyft really really does add up. How do you see mindset factoring into you know, the next level of business?
Speaker 2:So For my honest let me be a little bit honest you know, mentors and coaches are great in the real estate industry, but they don't emphasize after the fact, after you make the purchase of the property, after you close the property, and this is one thing.
Speaker 2:I've had a couple of conversations with coaches.
Speaker 2:I said why don't you teach them that you say because that's not our forte, right, so that mentor and coach may be there for a specific reason to change the mindset of the person who's being with them and working with them.
Speaker 2:So that mindset of the money not only in the bank or showing the bottom line on your profit and loss, it's that mindset that that is very important. You have to learn it also. So you don't have to learn how to do the data entry or where to put the numbers in which bucket, right, that's the person who can do it for you, where you can concentrate on building your business, growing your wealth and your assets, right. So what I want to reach as many as I can mentors, coaches, real estate professions that they need to also change their mindset on the accounting side as well. You just don't want a person who's just data entry, data entry. You want that person to go make that extra effort to give you what Real estate investors you know, anybody in the arena, real estate arena know what the numbers mean. That's what they need to learn what your numbers mean after the fact Right.
Speaker 1:I think of coaches, mentors, kind of like you learn different areas from each of them and you create your tool belt that you draw upon. I don't know, Do you offer coaching? Because I can see it would be a perfect segue that they teach right the deal points, or maybe the sales, the development, and then they hand them off to you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do offer coaching and mentoring as well and you know, one would be great part for me to mentor with a coach and I'm a mentor with a coach or a mentor, you know, be okay, let's get it right. I would right. You know it would be great if I they can bundle up my coaching and mentoring into their program as well, because that they are whomever they are coaching and mentoring would get that extra lift right away. They don't have to wait and look for somebody else to do right you know and to it's a habit, right?
Speaker 1:so even if it was brought up in the very beginning of when people first join commercial real estate and they're an associate or they're learning that, even if it's a tiny, you know ten dollars a week or something of that nature to get into the habit. So then, as the the volume increases, that it's already a smooth path for them.
Speaker 2:I agree, I agree. So I agree, so I agree yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was going to say shifting gears a little bit. How do you see AI intervening?
Speaker 2:and or assisting with this. Right now, ai is good to a certain point. So let's take for an example if in your one accounting file you have 10 properties, you can't tell AI to segment those expenses by property, because AI does not know that. By property, because AI does not know that. All right. And I'm also thinking how do you teach AI whether it's an expense or it's a capital item? You know, how can you tell AI to split your mortgage versus interest, versus more escrow? You know?
Speaker 1:so.
Speaker 2:AI is good to a certain point, you know, uh, but if you, it's not going to give you a rent roll, but you need to feed in the information to ai to get you a report right. So where do you get that data from?
Speaker 2:okay, right it's in the CRE industry, whether it's multifamily or it's a truly a commercial, industrial or shopping strip or something, the leases are different. You know you need to close to your CAM reconciliation. There's only so much you can do with AI so far, right Now. On the other hand, if you have only one property in one accounting file, like a QuickBooks file I'm going to talk about right, then AI can do 90% of your work because it's only one property.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. It's more simplistic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so you know it's. You can use AI feed in your profit and loss and tell it to interpretate it. You know, just give it to chat gpt by month and it let's see how it interpretates that it can do. It can tell you where your expenses were high, where where it was low, whether you received rent that month. You did not receive it with a dollar difference.
Speaker 2:Unless you feed them the tenant's name, then it'll spit out the information for you as well. So you know, in each industry, in our industry, ai is good to a certain point. Then you need that human touch. Maybe in future, you know, if you see Star Wars and things like that, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, there will come a day, right Right. Well, my last question for you, and this is always the big one. But what does living fully mean to you, Gita?
Speaker 2:That is a loaded one, right it is, isn't it?
Speaker 1:That's why it's always last.
Speaker 2:I am glad living fully means for me. I'm a very simple person, right. So for me, if I've learned to live where I had no money and where I have money today, okay, right, but, but you have, you know, maybe trillions, who knows? Right, but it is being happy in the moment and not fretting about the little things. You know it's like, okay, you know what that girl has a beautiful dress. It looks like a million dollar, but I want one like that. No, you know, I'm going to stay in my own limits and decide what my priority is. You know I want that high ticketed price bag or the dress, or you know whether I want to live within what makes me happy, and that's what I have been doing. I'm happy with what I have and I live below my means, even though I can afford that. Not a million dollar dress, definitely not. But I I'm, I'm enjoying myself and making me as a priority. That's, and my spouse, right. And then comes next line people like kids and grandkids, and all right.
Speaker 2:So, you know the simplest way you can live and be truthful to yourself.
Speaker 1:I think that is sage advice, of being truthful to yourself and, like you said, of not comparing yourself to this one or that one and this item or that item. So yeah, sage words, my dear. I just want to thank you so much for joining us today, gita, and how can people connect with you, because I know they're going to want to reach out to you to get their businesses really in their prime fitness. What's a good contact for you?
Speaker 2:You can social media me. My name is Geeta Faust and you can reach me at fasttrackconsultingcom. Just remember, the track doesn't have a K because most of the listeners are missing to track their numbers and so it's to get them thinking that you know, fast track is something, but fast track tracking their numbers is crucial as well, and you can always reach me at 215-579-1465. And thank you, heather. Appreciate you having me share.
Speaker 1:It's a true joy. Definitely, thank you appreciate it. Thank you, gita.