Recommended Education For A New Investor

[Tony Lanier]

Hello BP Members,

I was recently reading a thread by @Russell Brazil where the subject was, is BP setting unrealistic expectations. The subject generated many different perspectives aimed primarily at the newbie investor. The responses I should say was aimed primarily at the new investor. I as a newbie, understand this is not a get rich quick game, and as a general rule of life, anything worth doing is not easy nor for the weak hearted. The feedback as I perceived it, was most newbie investors lack the education needed to succeed in Real Estate. A statement was made that the biggest problem they saw was people commenting on something they know nothing about. This is why I try to always disclose in any comment that I may add that I am a new investor so, take it for what it is worth, and to try to attain an answer from an experienced investor. My question is, where to gain this education excluding a 20k price tag, and is formal Real Estate investing education per say, better than actionable Real Estate investing? Would becoming an RE agent give you a solid foundation to build upon?

Regards,Tony

[Mindy Jensen]

There are some types of education that are completely worth their weight in gold. The problem with real estate "education" that is being touted by many "gurus" is that it is ridiculously expensive, you get little to no actual information, and every time you attend a class, you're basically paying to attend a commercial for the next level of paid membership.

Classes that actually teach you will have a fee, but that fee won't be $20,000. A genuine learning environment won't push you to call your credit card companies and ask for an increase in your limit, and pass this off as an "exercise" to teach you how to "negotiate".

THAT is the type of education that is unsupported on BiggerPockets. 

I am a licensed agent, but the coursework I took to become an agent was solely information to help you pass the licensing test. You literally learn nothing about buying, selling or real estate in general in the coursework - and at the time I took it, my state had the highest time requirement of 168 hours. I can't even imagine what some states that require 40 hours of coursework are actually teaching you. 

Should you get your license? It can be an expensive task. I wrote about my experience and the fees I encountered a few years ago for the BiggerPockets Blog. It costs a lot more than you may think. These fees won't be the exact same - my license is in Colorado and these fees are from 3 years ago.