I know that a person can become successful in real estate investing with an 8th grade eduction in math. Honestly, I believe that's really all you need for a local real estate investment. If you're comparing properties in markets across the country or globe, obviously you need more education. I'm not much smarter than an 8th grader, so I invest locally! :)

You ask a good question. What education do we need to be successful?

My handyman is only able to read at a 2nd grade level and cannot write. He has someone write out his invoices. In a good month he makes $5000.

Abe Lincoln has one full year of formal schooling but otherwise was self-taught. Frederick Douglas...also largely self-taught.

Real Life Experience, will reveal True Genius.

Some of the most successful people I know,

were C Students in School. ( Including Me )

But they continued to apply themselves with determination

to solve problems and continued to Learn, Grow and Succeed.

The only degrees I know are on a Thermometer.

Always look to learn new things, and use common sense!

I'm going to add:

some classes are important. You need good math, financial, reading comprehension, etc. But to me, the degree itself is not important.

Financial couses. How to get financing and put deals together. The CCIM courses offered by the National As an of Realtors are a good place and anyone can take them. Plus, you get to meet people who are doing it every day.

A "degree" in common sense. So lacking with many people these days. A few math skills is good and reading comprehension. I would also add these days - internet access. From there, a love of learning and you can go anywhere. Then there is discipline.. to work toward your goals. You don't need a formal degree for your resume. And I am not sure going to college really teaches you useful skills.

Back in the day when I used to cook for a living we used to laugh at how bad the guys were that came with their fancy chef coats and their culinary degree. Most were schmucks,. the rest usually were pompous. Give me a guy with experience over education any day when we have 700 reservations on the books. I need a guy to go to war with me.

I dropped out of high school at 16. Went back at some point and took the test for the GED but that's it for formal schooling for me.

I am a big reader, though, and I did read pretty much the entire Encyclopedia Americana cover to cover back in the day, all the books, when I was stuck at home as a teenage mother. I was lucky to have that resource. I have also read most of the "Top 100 Classic Books" list that is flying around the internet these days.

My math skills are pretty much non-existent but my computer is my friend. Calculator, Excel and Quicken. I've been managing our finances for decades now on either Managing Your Money (DOS) or Quicken. Got my first computer in 1985.

Living in a big city requires a different mentality. When the economy declines and City Revenue diminishes, Government turns to deep pockets to make up the gap between revenue and expenditures.

As a landlord I have been tested at every turn. Each City Department has tired to cheat me by taxing and charging me excessively.

Education is a great thing. It can take you far beyond the explicit things that you study. It can teach you how to evaluate ideas, prepare plans, integrate complex circumstances and, in short, how to think.

The "math" that you learn in High School is not useful at all. What is the value of learning to factor polynomials? But that is the fault of the schools, because the schoolteachers follow a fixed curriculum instead of teaching how to think and solve problems.

One part of successful investing is economics. To learn economics, you need to be able to read graphs (and know the value of constructing them for yourself), some simple statistical analysis (not definitions, like means & medians, variances, but how to do simple analyses), how to follow a formula all of which helps you to learn how to think clearly.

You need to know how business is done, how to evaluate one strategy over another, and above all, how to go directly to facts, rather than hearsay, and to be able to reason from them honestly and with insight..

You need to learn how to predict trends, evaluate possibilities and how to estimate risks.

For all of these things, its not what you study, but what you learn. I don't what kind of resources you have available in your area, but I can tell you this: I went to graduate school at a university that made it their business to de-emphasize read-and-memorize learning, in favor of reading the ORIGINAL texts of ideas on the subject and all of the ORIGINAL papers on the subject that follow, and then discussing the IDEAS in class and in seminar. You can do that, too, by yourself.

Just for a starter, I would suggest reading "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. It was published back in 1776, but Amazon sells a Bantam Classic edition for $5.12 plus shipping. Read it and THINK about what it says. If you have any head for university-level work, you will see ideas about what makes competition a serious part of wealth-building, what makes prices go up and down, and insight into the process of who gets wealthy and who doesn't. There are myriad ideas since 1776 that build on this foundation, but it is Adam Smith that started it all.

"What would you think are some degrees that a person could attain through college or night school or whatever that would be beneficial in helping excel as a real estate investor? Or not even degrees for that matter, but extra studying outside of reading and learning from guru's specifically"

Frankly I dont think much formal education is required, unless perhaps the investor wants to build a multi million dollar corporation. Even then it may not be necessary.

A basic understanding of:

-Building construction

-Tax laws

-Financing (traditional mortgages and principle/interest implications, LOC, VTB, ballon, syndicated mortgages, private financing, mortgage application costs including to setup and discharge, how to extract equity)

-People skills

-Local rental legislation

-Having "handy" skills

-Ability to find properties worth buying

-Basic Book keeping skills

-Ability to find unrealized value in a property

-Networking to create list of needed professionals and tradespeople

-Marketing skills

-Ability to create legal documents (leases, loans, offer to purchase, rent to own, holding fee agreements ect)

-Ability to manage time and stay focused.

no doubt there are a few more skills required, but none of them require extensive formal education.

Frankly much of the information can be received from quality forums such as this one.

However there is no school better than that of actually "doing it". Especially when we learn from our mistakes.

The common belief is "knowledge is power". This is not quite true. Knowledge alone is NOT power. It took me many years to learn that.

It is the ability to ACQUIRE knowledge as needed and the ability to USE the knowledge in a meaningful way that is power.

The world is full of unsuccessful well educated people.

A friend once proudly told me his son could calculate mortgage tables. I told him that alone was not useful or even much of an accomplishment. Detailed mortgage tables are readily available, to spend time calculating them will not create wealth. Unless the son also had the ability to USE the mortgage information (ie everything entailed in finding, buying managing, refinancing, selling ect a property, or arranging mortgages to create income).........calculating mortgage tables were of little use.

I think the greatest key to success is a burning desire. In fact that seems to be the most common thread in biographies of many successful people.

Lack of knowledge can be overcome, lack of desire can not.

"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."

Frank Lloyd Wright

Architect

"Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential." Winston Churchill

Hard work, dedication, never giving up.....these are the skills that far outweigh education.

On a side note.........out of my immediate family and extended family I am the only one that did not go to university or college. I am the only one without a degree. Yet if success is measured financially, I am the most "successful".

It was desire.

I double-majored in undergrad and graduated in the Honors Program. Then I did my Master's. DH double-majored in undergrad also; did his Master's; and then did his JD. The JD has been most practical, as far as the biz goes--- but even more so, the things that have been most important are things that can't really be taught in a classroom.

The big things that DH has brought to our success have been his vision-- being able to see the Big Picture. His stick-to-it-iveness-- his ability to start a project and see it through, rather than getting bored or discouraged or distracted partway through. He has a good gut instinct for liars and situations. He has no problems talking about money, negotiating a deal, talking about embarrassing/personal/sensitive subjects, or holding people to their promises.

The things I bring to our success is that I'm the boots-on-the-ground. I deal with People, while he deals with Stuff. He gets things going-- I keep things running. I deal with Paper, with Information, with Money, with Obtaining Materials. I'm the one who keeps my eyes on the market; who sees what sells for what, and how long it took; who spots the deals; who filters out all the chaff so that he can see what's worth looking at, and decide whether it's worth *us* looking at. All that stuff is related to my Master's work, but my Master's work wouldn't have taught it to me--- but my natural affinity for that sort of thing made me pursue that degree, if that makes sense.

Ultimately, a degree is a piece of paper that opens doors. If you don't have a door to open, it's a very expensive key. Or perhaps it's like a tool to keep in your back pocket. But the tool itself isn't going to do anything magic for someone who doesn't have the aptitude for using that tool, just like someone can read a thousand books and be an excellent armchair landlord, but there's no substitute for actually encountering tenants and prospects in the wild. :)

Not "degrees", but trade skills may be very useful. My 14 y.o. son is very interested in investing in real estate. We've been bringing him with us since he was a baby. While he will be definitely going to college (something technical, like engineering or IT), he will take courses in electric and plumbing at a local technical school. Maybe carpentry.

Law comes quickly to mind. Moshe's reply is spot on.

I think that in the private sector, the possession of a degree is not valued as highly as the ability to apply the knowledge toward profitable endeavors.

Well, I was going to seriously say that knowing some child psychology would be useful...