Education/degree for RE investing?

Question

Hi everyone,

I've been in the military since I was 19 (I'm 26 now) and because of being stupid for a while I don't have any higher education to speak of. I have since figured out the error of my ways and have enrolled into college to get a BA. My end goal is to be a full time multi-family real estate investor.

My question is what type of degree would be the most useful to an investor? Right now I am on the pace towards either an economics or accounting BA. I'm not sure which BA to get yet. I chose these because I figured these would be handy with knowing the economy of my investing area and running my own books.

Also, would it be worth getting my real estate license? I'm not really familiar with what use this would be to an individual investor.

Thanks for any reply's!

C Rich · Answer

Business!  Alternatively a law degree.

Also, like others have said, you won't need the degree for r.e. since the license is worth more over time to the regulators (c.e. is required for that profession).

I, too, am thinking about delving back into the r.e. licensing side in order to purchase and because generally I like it.  Online classes are available for that, but coupled with a Business degree, you can't go wrong.

Tyson Bumgarner · Answer

I should have said this before. I'm getting my BA so I can become an officer. I will also be getting it during my active duty time, so I will still have a fulltime job.

Like you said Brian, it may take me years before I can stop working a "normal" job and do RE fulltime. Being an officer is a faster way to get there because I have to have a BA and I get paid much more while I maintain my active duty service!

I was leaning towards accounting already before I asked this. I feel like I can learn what I need to know about economics from reading some books and paying attention to the news. And I will definitely look into the RE license, some of the terminology is still very confusing to me!

Bryan Hancock · Answer

Accounting and finance courses are very useful.  Many colleges have master's degrees in real estate development too.

A lot really depends on what you want to do.

James H. · Answer

You don't need a college degree to invest in real estate. In fact, the argument could be made that you'd be better served making and saving money to invest now rather than going to school for 4 years and then start. I've read posts on this forum where some investors wish they hadn't wasted time and money in college.

That being said, I hold a bachelor's in civil engineering and should have a master's in the same by December. For me, college went a long way to mature me emotionally. I dropped out of high school when I was 16 and didn't go to college until I was 24. It was an eye opener to observe classmates at least 6 to even more years younger than me who were more responsible and mature than I was in many ways. There is a non-tangible value to having a college experience. Plus, the college degree got me a job that paid well enough to save money with which to use in real estate. It takes a lot of time and hard work (I'm talking years to decades) to get your investments to generate the kind of income a middle class salary will provide.

So, college helped me appreciate the world around me in a way that I don't think I could have gained any other way, both from an engineering and a social point of view.

If you are anything like me, you might get excited about something and then run out of steam over time. By completing a college degree, I learned how to adjust goals. One cool thing about college is that you don't have to see it as a 4-5 year commitment. Psychologically, I just considered that I was re-commiting myself for three to four months each semester until I got my degree.

And, you can loose real estate. You will never loose a college degree. Education is the one thing that can never be taken away from you once you get it. A college education can be a great hedge in life if you use it wisely.

A bachelor's in business administration or ecomonics would be more than enough arm you with an adequate base of knowledge to invest in real estate. Honeslty, you will see and read about all kinds of complicated investment vehicles in real estate, but if you understand the concepts of principal and interest, you can get to the bottom of most anything you need to figure out. The remaining strategies tend to juggle legal issues specific to real estate. You won't learn that in college.

Jake Kucheck · Answer

Undergrad is for partying, meeting useful contacts, and prepping you for grad school.

That said, undergrad econ courses tend to be less practical than accounting ones, so I would choose accounting between those two if RE investing was my goal.  I went with econ and poli sci because I wanted to go to law school, then I realized that I didn't want to go to law school after all.  Accounting would have likely been more practical.

Getting your license can't hurt, as it will at the very least force you to learn some of the rules and become familiar with some of the terminology.  Also it can allow you to profit from deals that may not necessarily fit your own investing criteria but are still adequate deals.