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Hello! I am 21 and have decided to pursue my associates degree in real estate and then get my liscense after. I also would like to go to a 4 year after that and get my bachelors in a related field. My ultimate goal in real estate is to be able to develope properties and rent/sell them, and to own vacation properties to enjoy myself and to rent out the remainder of the time I dont use them.
I would like to go straight to the 4 year after getting my associates/real estate liscense. I feel having a good amount of education done in the field would give me the edge when i want to start my career. I also already have 2 years of college done so almost all of my general ed classes are taken care of.
The main idea I have right now is getting my 4 year degree in Architecture, any thoughts?
An essential part of achieving your plan is to have and frequently re-visit your goals and progress. You will also need to 'flesh-out' your plan. For example, Do you plan to work in Real Estate or Architecture ... or both? What type of career opportunities will you have with a 4-year degree in Architecture? - Will you need more to earn more? Will your income (or other resources) be sufficient to allow you to support yourself AND invest in income property? Where does a family fit into the picture (financial, time, related)?
Good luck! You can do it, but, almost everything in life involves trade-offs and choices. The more effort you put into thinking-out and preparing to deal with those issues, the better prepared you will be to achieve your goals in life.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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A degree in architecture will not help you get a job in real estate, something like business, finance, marketing, or real estate would be better. Also, a lot of people lost their real estate jobs in the crash, so you will be up against many people with a lot of experience. You will need a job to make money in order to start on your goal, unless you have a huge inheritance coming.
I definitely second what Hemlock said. To a large extent, being in real estate means being self employed, so people aren't going to be looking at your degrees the same way as if you were trying to go into a more "typical" employment field. Econ, business, marketing are all good degrees that would be useful. I would recommend not doing Architecture. It is really not related to the type of real estate you are talking about doing, and is very narrowly focused.
Thanks for the input! What if I ideally would like to become a developer like I said, and creating rentable properties. I feel a background of architecture would help alot with that. And obviously I have not experienced any of the struggles of someone in this field, but I am well aware of the need to be self sufficient and the possibility of going a long period of time with no income.
And what if I dont want to, persay, become an agent or broker, but focus more on managing properties and having my own projects on the side that i would renovate/build to sell and rent. Does anyone have experience in this aspect of real estate?
I think a degree in architecture would be a waste of time. I totally agree with Hemlock on those other choices.
A degree in real estate would be a good choice. U of Denver offers one that is real estate and construction management. Some of the degree programs have different specialties that are more geared towards development.
Creating rentable properties and good flips are about having a stager or interior decorator as a consultant. They will steer you in the right direction.
I agree, architecture won't get you into development as quickly as business, finance, accounting, JD or MSRE will. Development is all about finance. Architecture is something we focus on like 1% of the time.
I have a bachelor of science degree in urban development which was a mixture of architecture, real estate, construction, business, landscape architecture, planning, etc. It was a good program basically touching on everything one would need to know in that field. I also have an MBA Finance from a bricks and mortar school. I spent 8 years in real estate development but eventually bailed on that business when the market crashed going into business for myself and I couldn't be happier more money and free time. I learned a lot in those programs, tools that I use today, but perhaps the best benefit is the people I met. I now have contacts at every end of the development spectrum including people working for municipalities. good luck.
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