Five years ago I would have started talking about the late night
TV Real Estate Gurus, but today anyone with cable TV, a
satellite dish, or in a large city can learn the virtues of
having money 24 hours a day. The infomercials or rather the
programs they promote are all most people think of if you
mention real estate education. But, there are really three
distinct types of real estate education and hundreds of
sub-categories. The three types are: real estate investment (as
popularized by Carlton Sheets,) pre-licensing (mandated by most
states,) and real-real estate education (traditional education
at the college/professional level, it should be mandatory in
High Schools.)

Everyone should have some real estate investment education,
especially the poor among us. We all live and work in or on real
estate, even pilots land. Almost all fortunes great and small
included real estate, yet we don't teach it to our kids.

Pre-licensing education is only needed for those who want a real
estate license.

The most difficult is real-real estate education. No matter what
any guru says you'll need real-real estate education, the good
news is you can hire it. One note of caution, don't assume your
local real estate agent has anything but pre-licensing
education! In real estate the three most important words are
location, location, location. If you're hiring or taking any
form of real estate education the two most important words are
caveat emptor!

Lets start with Pre-licensing, it's the simplest form of
education memorization!. In the preface to my book "One House At
A Time / Finding And Buying Single Family Rentals" I write:

Don't confuse understanding real estate with being able to pass
the real estate licensing exams!

To pass the real estate exam, take the required pre-licensing
class and memorize the answers!

Do not debate with your pre-licensing instructors, accept the
answers they provide, whether or not the answers makes sense! Do
not let anyone knowledgeable, or not, confuse you! Pass the exam!

What the pre licensing instructors know is that the real estate
exams are not written by real estate people! Licensing exams are
written by professional educators who are assigned a chapter of
the law or even just a paragraph and told to write questions
about it without reference to how the question might be affected
by the entire law, case law, other laws, or common and local
practice.

There are only two ways to pass a state real estate exam either
know the law so well that you can tell from what paragraph each
question comes from (answering as if you knew only that
paragraph) or memorize the answers. I stand by that advice, I
can think of no better way to put it! If you want to get your
real estate license, get it first before taking any real estate
investment classes or any real-real estate education. I've been
in lending and real estate since 1969, teaching real estate,
real estate investment, real estate sales, mortgage lending,
mortgage sales, 1031 exchanging, and real estate development. In
every class I judged my results by the students understanding.
I've never taught pre-licensing because understanding real
estate is irreverent to passing the exam.

Real-real estate education comes from two sources, colleges/
universities and the various divisions of the National
Association of REALTORS?. Real estate schools teach
pre-licensing, gurus teach real estate investment. Real-real
estate education covers every area of real estate, advanced
classes have required prerequisites, and their instructors have
either advanced degrees or demonstrate experience.

Real estate investment education is mostly "motivational!"
Instructors known as "GURUS" (mostly quacks) preach you don't
need real estate education, only their expensive "advanced"
classes. They promise to teach "secrets." They promote
themselves by telling you the value of having money! They tell
you how easy and quick it to make money is using their "system."
They give you canned speeches rather than educate you so that
you can use your own words. They present lots of anonymous
testimony to their teachings none of which you can verify. They
provided huge amounts of paper and recordings to justify their
outrageous prices.

There are good Gurus! Read "One House At A Time / Finding And
Buying Single Family Rentals." I"m a Guru, I use to teach
real-real estate but now teach real estate investment. There are
others, I would trust anything written by John T Reed. The very
best free class I ever saw was by Barney Zick (his is best stage
present I've seen in real estate investment education) his
prices are outrageous, but I liked everything he said.

The question was "Real Estate Education Should You Spend Your
Money?" To answer that first we ask how much are we talking
about? My book sells for $44.95, Reed's books start near $30.00,
the TV Gurus start at several hundred dollars and to get their
whole program can cost as much as $35,000.00! Don't be fooled by
$9.95 trials! "Should You Spend Your Money?" Yes! You get very
little extra with the higher prices unless you judge education
by the weight of the books, but one reasonable deal can recover
the cost of even the most expensive program! So do something!

The only advantage to the high priced programs is the motivation
you'll get from your spouse, when she finds out what you spent!