Newfound Interest in RE, New to BP, Need Suggestions

[Dante Villalobos]

Hello, my name is Dante and I just recently discovered an interest in real estate investing, mainly by accident. I started out by doing research and listening to podcasts about investing in stocks, paying off debt, and frugality, and through those means the topic of real estate investing came up quite often.

I literally just started listening to the Bigger Pockets podcast a week ago, and just before that I had purchased an audiobook on Audible called "Rental Property Investing," which led me to this website. At first I just started listening out of curiosity, but within the week both my wife and I became extremely interested in starting this journey, and now we're serious about learning as much as we can in order to eventually make our first purchase. We know that moment is still a ways away, so we want to take it step-by-step and be as cautious as we can.

Now a quick introduction. I live in Los Angeles and I'm a warehouse worker at the Los Angeles County Library. I actually checked out a few books on real estate investing from the library, and I'm awaiting three books I purchased from BP, although I already have the digital copies and audiobooks. I'm currently pursuing a bachelor's in Computer Information Systems at CalState LA, which leads me to my question.

Just yesterday I discovered that I my school offers a minor in Real Estate, which requires a total of five classes, one of which I've already taken as part of my actual major, and another which I enrolled for next semester earlier this week because I figured I might as well get some formal education on real estate (I enrolled in the second class before learning about the minor program). Anyway, I have to take a total of five classes out of eight that are offered, and since I've been paying out of pocket I want to take the minimum required, otherwise I'd have to come up with another $3,400 to take an additional semester.

So two of the classes are required (Real Estate Principles and Real Estate Practice), and the other three are electives. So my question is, from the options I'm about to list, which three classes would you all consider to be the most important in order to get into real estate investing?

The options are:

• FIN 3030 - Business Finance (3)
• FIN 3810 - Real Estate Law (3)
• FIN 4320 - Real Estate Management (3)
• FIN 4380 - Real Estate Valuation (3)
• FIN 4390 - Real Estate Finance (3)
• FIN 4930 - Real Estate Investment (3)

I feel like I can eliminate Real Estate Management because there's probably a ton of material I can find out there (including one book that I purchased from this website), and hands-on experience is probably the best way to learn anyway.

Thank you all for your time.

-Dante V.