What Education is Necessary for a Successful Real Estate Career?

[Don Konipol]

A large majority of people new to real estate and wanting to make some aspect of real estate their full time “career” get it all wrong.  They’re misled by the hype from the “cult” created by would be mentors advertising via YouTube, webinars, lead capture websites, free newsletters, start up kits, and general misinformation.

Spending $40k on a mentorship/information class on wholesaling, subject, fix n flip, etc. does not create a sustainable career.  Even in the rare case where the subject matter did lead to a profitable job (business), it’s not sustainable in an increasingly fast changing, niche dominated, location dependent, law changing, environment.  

The people that I’ve met who have long term sustainable real estate investing career have been those who have, through either formal education or “on the fly “ learning became knowledgeable in 

1. The principles of real estate

2. Real estate law

3. Real estate finance

4. Real estate investing, financial, and market analytics 

Most coursework in preparation for real estate licensing exams cover the first two pretty well. An alternative is to either read a Principle of real estate text book and a real estate law textbook, or to take one of many classes offered by various colleges, organizations and affiliates of the NAR.

Back when I got my start in real estate investing, ( mid to late 1970s) there were some “gurus” that made sense - their offerings were relatively inexpensive, their teachings relevant, and they always prefaced that they taught one or two “techniques” that could be used in connection with obtaining a firm basic knowledge of real estate principles and finance.  I got to know a few of these personally, Jimmy Napier was a personal friend, and these teachers were eager to hear about deals I was structuring and often asked if they could use those as examples in the classes/seminars they put on.  

It all began changing in around 1979 as a few companies organized for the sole purpose of putting on seminars began to recruit professional actors ( ones that were not well known), provided them with scripts, and paid the. A percentage “of the gate” including “back of the room” sales, which were usually workbooks and video/audio tapes for dale at $899.00 but today only can be had for the one time low price of $399.00, with a set of steak knives.  It was a short hop from there to “the personality cult”, I don’t think that any of the people selling mentorship’s today have any any quantifiable success as real estate investors.