Getting Educated about Real Estate Investing

One day I woke up and realized that my J-O-B wasn't going to provide the kind of comfortable lifestyle I'd like.

I mean, let's face it. If you want to send your kids to school, or travel, or enjoy a comfortable retirement, your job isn't going to do it for you. You can't save enough cash from your paycheck to cover these important expenses. You really need to make investments to grow your money.

And that's why I got interested in real estate investing. I like the idea of a tangible investment - you can see and touch property. And real estate is a reliable investment over the long run, because property is limited and there will always be a growing demand for it.

Of course, there's no way a person can just jump in and start investing. I know very little about real estate, so I did some research and found a couple of real estate investment courses that looked pretty good. Here are my impressions of the two courses I checked out.

Jump Starting Your Future with Preconstruction Profits

This course is highly focused on one area of real estate investing: preconstruction. Dr. Chris Anderson (the author) clearly believes that this is the best kind of real estate investment, and it's hard to argue with success. I do like the whole idea of preconstruction investment - it's kind of exciting to be involved with new developments. And it's one of the more "hands off" ways of investing in real estate.

At first I thought the course looked a little skimpy for the price. But I soon changed my mind. The videos are packed full of information that goes deeper than I expected. Transcripts of the videos are included in the course, which makes it easier to review sections and write notes.

The contents of the course include:

The Preconstruction Process - What preconstruction investing is and the steps involved.
Creating Wealth with Preconstruction Real Estate - Strategies for building wealth and how to quantify the performance of preconstruction deals.
Types of Preconstruction Real Estate - The categories and subtypes, which deals are genuine and which are marketing ploys.
Determining Your Investment Objective - How to determine which investment opportunities make sense for you.
Analzying a Preconstruction Deal - A walk-through of every step taken to decide on a preconstruction investment.
Remarketing Properties for Maximum Profits - The nuts and bolts of reselling the preconstruction investment.
Maximizing Profits while Minimizing Risk - How to avoid mistakes that could cost you big money.
19 Steps to Rocket Your Preconstruction Investing - How to get access to deals and what to do with them.
And so on.

The course also comes with some useful bonuses. For example, you get spreadsheets that show you how to create a really profitable portfolio and how to calculate your return on investment. These tools make crunching the numbers a lot easier for beginners or even people who have done this once or twice.

Another plus to this course is being able to ask questions and get answers from the experts. There is a blog set up for this purpose so you can see questions from other investors, too.

All in all, I think this instructional material is great value for the money. I like it a lot.


The Ultimate Investor

I decided to check out this course because I wanted something really comprehensive. It's advertised as the most complete real estate investment course ever offered, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's true. This particular course takes a wider approach than the Preconstruction course. It's a massive package that covers just about any type of real estate investing you could do. The website is a little cheesy, but who cares about that as long as the product is good.

The instructional package is huge. It contains:

An audio seminar on 8 CDs from real estate investment authority Milt Tanzer (8 CDs and workbook)
Real Estate Investments and How to Make Them (book and course)
No Money Down (e-book) - techniques for minimum risk investing
Bird-dogging and Beyond (e-book) -how to get started in real estate with no cash or credit
Entering the World of Commercial/Investment Real Estate (book)
Investment analysis software
Forms and checklists
and more.

There are many proven tips and strategies that are used by professional investors. That's a key thing to look for in any type of course. Do the experts successfully use the methods themselves? Here, the answer is yes.

The course does include a lot of material about getting started with very little cash. I appreciated that, because I'm a pretty ordinary person making an average salary. These techniques are within my capacity to use. You don't need to be rich to invest in real estate, and that's the point that some people don't realize.

Much of the material in this course has been selling for a long time (with revisions to bring it up to date). With that lengthy track record, it's obvious that potential investors think the course provides solid and valuable information. And I'd agree with those people. This stuff is the real nitty gritty.


My opinion:

I'd think I'd rate
The Ultimate Investor 4 1/2 stars out of 5
and
Preconstruction Profits 5 stars out of 5.

Each of the courses has its strengths. Preconstruction investing just holds great appeal for me, and so maybe that's why I ranked that course higher. Other people might rank The Ultimate Investor course higher, but to each their own! Both courses contain quality information, depending on your interests. And either one would put you light years ahead of other investors.