Real estate investors need to possess skills in lots of different areas, especially when they run their own business. Every entrepreneur has to wear lots of different hats to get their business off the ground.
Think about what it takes to become a good wholesaler/flipper/property manager. You need to have skills in:
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Accounting and tax preparation
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Negotiation
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Project Management
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Contracts and legal forms
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Construction
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Marketing
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Web Design
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And then some…
Sure you can outsource a lot of these. And many times you should. But the successful real estate investor knows at least a little bit about all of them. At least then they can tell if the person they are hiring is competent. Or, the investor might find a way to automate some of these tasks and not have to hire someone.
I Don’t Wanna Go to School
So where do you acquire these skills? Most of us are done with school. Besides, have you seen the cost of college lately? Crazy.
There is no reason why an investor would need to go back to school to get their CPA or law license. But that doesn’t mean investors shouldn’t at least take a course or two in an area that will make them a better investor.
Don’t get me wrong... Real Estate Mogul is a great place to learn about real estate investing. It’s worth looking beyond other investors, however, to learn from true specialists in many different areas.
So let’s take a little tour to see what’s out on the world wide web for real estate investors to hone their skills.
Start with YouTube. People have put TONS of videos on multiple topics that would help real estate investors. Look at construction techniques alone… everything from installing a sink to jacking up an entire house (usually) has multiple videos on how to do it. Stuck on a rehab project? YouTube it.
There are lots of other techniques for investors out there. There are many real estate investors who post videos with their techniques. Be careful though. There are lots of people who call themselves real estate investors posting videos on YouTube. They range from ultra-successful investors to wannabes living in Mom’s basement. Take them with a grain of salt.
YouTube seems to be best for specific problems such as construction issues.
What about other areas? You probably won’t learn a great deal about accounting or how to minimize taxes from YouTube. Maybe you want a full course in a particular area?
Meet Lynda
The Lynda website has 4,326 online courses (as of this writing) in specific niche areas. The courses are in video format and suitable for all your devices. That way you can learn anywhere.
Lynda has all kinds of courses that would be helpful to real estate investors. They can show you how to learn all kinds of computer programs from QuickBooks to Microsoft Project. They also have courses in areas from Negotiation to Real Estate Photography and Facebook Marketing.
All of these courses could be very useful to a real estate investor.
Lynda is a subscription website. After a 10-day free trial, you pay one monthly charge for unlimited access to all their courses. Both levels, Basic and Premium, provide unlimited access - the Premium service also gives you access to the project files the instructor uses to teach the course.
If you pay for a year in advance on the Premium plan, you also can download the courses. Putting the courses directly on your device means you can learn even when you are not connected to the internet.
Lynda continues to upload new courses, so it pays to keep looking for more techniques and skills to acquire.
Education by the People for the People
Ever wonder how a website like Wikipedia is put together? Wikipedia relies on thousands of people sharing their knowledge about all sorts of stuff in the world. The readers of Wikipedia also police the website to catch inaccuracies or horse manure peddled by people who don’t want to provide value.
The website Udemy applies the same idea to education. Udemy doesn’t just offer courses to students. People can also create and sell their own courses via the website.
Think of Udemy as an online marketplace for education.
That means people can find (or teach) courses on pretty much anything. And just like Lynda, once you sign up for a course, you can access it from pretty much anywhere.
Udemy has a pricing structure that goes by the course. Courses range in price from $5 to hundreds of dollars. There are even some free courses. You just buy the ones you want and have lifetime access to them. There is also a 30-day refund policy if you are not satisfied.
When you sign up for a course, Udemy takes you to your ‘Course Dashboard.’ From there you will see how many courses there are in various different subjects. You can also see what courses are trending to help judge the quality of the course.
Most of the courses are videos, but they show a PowerPoint presentation with the teacher talking in the background. They will also show questions other students have asked the teacher and the teacher’s answers. There’s usually also course materials you can download and keep.
If you have some expertise (like real estate investing?), you can create your own course to place on the Udemy marketplace. Udemy will charge a fee for hosting the course and advertising it to its student base – but you get to keep the bulk of the sales.
Successful business people and real estate investors never stop learning. Today there are tons of ways to keep the learning machine going through the internet. We are here at Real Estate Mogul to help you learn how to crush it in real estate. We also want you to be exposed to lots of other avenues for growth as well.
Got Something to Teach us?
Got anything helpful to add to the info in today’s lesson? Share it below.
Keep Learning – Even the best investors are always learning. Your competition is continuing to improve themselves – shouldn’t you?
Leverage Your Skills – Do you have some special knowledge or skills you can pass on to someone else? If people see how successful you are, they will probably pay you to see how you do it.
Trust, but Verify – The more you know, the better price you can get. Understand what someone will be doing for you before you hire them. YouTube the job – or take a course in it. Then you will know if what they are saying makes sense, or if they are taking you for a ride.
JP Moses
is a real estate investor in Memphis, TN, with experience ranging from land lording to note buying, rehabbing, and wholesaling. However, wholesaling is the area that he enjoys most and where he bring the most experience and expertise to his students.