You can either find a mentor and try and learn as much as possible from them and pick up some hours either interning for them for some real life real estate experience while finishing college, OR  pick a real estate school to take the classes either online or in person ( I recommend the arizona school of real estate and business ) and in person as you will get more out of the classes from the in person engagement.

I'm also streamlining a lot of internal systems which will possibly eliminate the need all together. 

@William Carpenter, in regards to Series LLCs and states that recognize them or not, the issue comes down to each specific state recognizing the "internal liability shield."

I want to buy real estate in the future, but I want to have a better understanding of not only the real estate market, but the impact that certain legislation's, policies, taxes, etc may have on the real estate market.

My thinking is each condo in a building on the same parcel have separate titles, whereas an apartment building's units are all part of the same title of the building:Residential real property that is alienable separate from the title to any other dwelling unit, provided that both of the following apply:(A) The owner is not any of the following:(i) A real estate investment trust, as defined in Section 856 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Please see the list below for a few examples: Certified Public Accountant (CPA)Certified Financial Analyst (CFA)Certified Management Accountant (CMA)Enrolled Agent (EA)Certified Internal Auditor (CIA)Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE)Certified Government Auditing Professional (CGAP)Certified Bank Auditor (CBA)I agree with @Eamonn McElroy that the CPA designation is among the prestigious of the accounting credentials and there is no specific accounting credential for the real estate industry.

I've got a list of property managers I'd like to reach out to (most from the BP internal search pages), and I'm starting to look at properties this week.

Cool thread.While I'm still in the Big 4 world where I work as an international tax attorney(I'm typing this from my cube), I became re-inspired to pursue real estate investing back in December 2016 when on vacation in Jamaica.

My guess (err, maybe educated guess) is that very financially secure folks are looking to cash in the opportunity zone tax legislation - since it's a really great tax deal for them (my understanding). 

A lot of my jobs can be from international, NorCal or SoCal or basically anywhere.