SPECIAL FOCUS
THE RIGHT EDUCATION
How Do You Choose Good Real Estate Education? THERE’S MORE THAN ENOUGH OUT THERE, BUT NOT EVERYTHING IS RIGHT FOR YOU.
by Tom Olson
n the early 1990s, if you had been looking for a course on real estate investing, you might have spent a fair amount of time and effort looking. In those days, internet access was uncommon. You had to go to the library and look for book if you wanted to do research. Or, you had to identify an expert in your target field and convince that person to teach you. Both options were difficult. Finding written material about real estate was nearly impossible if you were considering investing instead of simply taking a course on how to be a real estate agent. My, how times have changed. Today, there are countless investors and would-be investors eager to mentor new students, often for a hefty fee. Sometimes, those fees are a valid part of accessing valuable information. Often, they are a sad excuse to wring revenue from a learning population that is not a good fit for the instructor. Every real estate investor is different, and that means every investor, new or experienced, will best benefit from different learning and teaching strategies. The most important question a new investor seeking education can ask themselves is: What is the right real estate education for me? From free blogs and Facebook groups to YouTube channels and podcasts, there are countless options I
available to an investor seeking education. Nearly every one of them claims to provide all the ingredients to the “secret sauce” that makes a real estate investor a success. If “free” is not a priority for an investor, the price tags too are limitless. Real estate masterminds, investment clubs, mentorships, and one-on-one coaching can cost more than $100,000 a year in some cases. There is also an array of one, two, or three-day “speed courses” and seminars designed to accelerate a student’s progress into successful real estate wealth creation. For the student who has already tried everything, personal consultants will evaluate strategy, process, and operations in an attempt to identify, isolate, and fix specific real estate business problems. The list of options goes on and on, yet the question remains: “What is the right real estate education for me?” For most real estate investors who got started in the mid-2000s or shortly after the Great Recession, accessing the right education options for real estate was a trial-and-error process. The choices, even a decade ago, were overwhelming. An investor simply had to do the research on the program, fork over the training fees, and hope for the best. Today, this approach could break the bank before an investor gets even a single deal done.
Many successful real estate investors have spent more than $1 million on education during their investment careers. In fact, many consider these funds well spent. However, no one will tell you that every single dollar spent was worth it. Even when the end result is success, there will be times when you travel to an event or attend a training and realize the fit was just not right. Fortunately, there are ways to make sure that any training, viewed as an opportunity, can be the “right fit” for you, at least to a degree. 6 CRUCIAL QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT AN EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY When you are trying to decide what educational path to pursue, there are six crucial questions to ask about the opportunity that will help you determine if it is likely to be a good fit for you. Use these questions to help you evaluate the caliber of an opportunity in light of your own situation. NO. 1 Will this educational opportunity help me reach my specific, present-day goals? It is easy to get sidetracked by new businesses and “shiny objects,” but your real estate investing will not thrive without focus. Do not attend real estate investing education events that send you off in a new direction when your
28 | think realty magazine :: march – april 2023
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