education for real estate investing?

Question

My long-term goal is to get into real estate investing. I have completed the education required for and will be taking my real estate license exam next month. I do not have 6 months income saved and do not see it feasible with school and work while living independently. I would like to pursue the education or degree that would be most beneficial in the long run for investing. I have thought about Construction Management (associates) and then from there pursuing a Construction Engineer (bachelors) degree hoping the experience and knowledge will help me flip homes and start saving for investing. My brother is taking the business route in real estate and going for the Business Management degree. We both eventually want to end up owning a business together and so I would like my education to bring equal value to the table. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Getting started in RE investing isn't as hard as it sounds. You can learn a lot from reading materials online in your spare time. To get started in the business you'll need money. I recommend a couple of fairly easy options:

1) Find someone in the "hard money" lending business. These are people who have wealthy investors that want good returns from RE investments. Usually, a hard money lender will pay a commission for someone who identifies or structures a deal. Depending on the size of the deal you could make 5-10% of its overall value. On a $1 million deal you could make $50-100K (pre-tax). You could also work as an assistant to learn the business.

2) Option two is to get investors. This will be harder to do since you don't have any experience in the industry and you're still in school. However, getting a few "friends and family" to invest might give you $100K or so to play with. That might be enough to buy a property, make improvements, and sell at a profit.

3) Builders and RE developers are two different animals. Builders make money building houses. It's a lot of work, time consuming and expensive. RE developers often make money by subdividing land. For example, if you buy a 2 acre lot in a neighborhood where the average lot size is 1/4 acre, you can subdivide your lot into 8 smaller lots and sell them off one at a time or to a builder. Going through the subdivision process with the local city is a hassle but you can make good money at it.

I hope that help.

Answer 2

I have seen people in a medium sized town in the southeast do this to perfection, a guy owned a gas station out of college and made $20 M in real estate before we knew it ! Stay in touch with your local market, if you get some extra time, try Jupiter, Florida area.

Laugh if you want...Carlton Sheets made some huge money in Stuart, Florida in the 1980's before he got in the infomercial business, he probably understands Florida real estate trends better than anyone I know. It's no B / S, if he used real, live numbers, no one would believe what he has done, people would go away thinking it too impossible !

Answer 3

I've been in and out of Real Estate for a few years and the market isn't looking like it was.

You'd both be best served to look at any Long-term investments/ideas;as this market is changing.

Good luck and stick together! Real Estate is Awesome! It's the Only job/Career that I've Ever Loved!!!!

Answer 4

Find a small to mid sized reputable homebuilder to go to work for. You can learn on the job. While your doing this, go for either the engineering degree or an architecture degree. Construction management degrees are a dime a dozen and most of the best construction managers I know have no degree.