- For those interested in starting a career in real estate, our recommendation for 2023 is “Pathways to Property: Starting Your Career in Real Estate.” a relatively brief overview of how real estate development and investment work.
- For beginner investors, we recommend “The Real Estate Financial Modeling Bootcamp,” which will quickly get you up to speed on modeling that will help you make your first investment decisions.
- For intermediate and expert-level investors, consider enrolling in Coursera’s “Increasing Real Estate Management Profits: Harnessing Data Analytics,” an advanced property investing course best suited for experienced specialists.
Real estate investing has been one of the most lucrative business strategies for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and the wealthiest real estate investors have fortunes today of over $15 billion. Not to say, though, that real estate investing is only suitable for multi-billionaires – quite the opposite. Real estate investment is also an excellent option for people who are already employed or running a different business.
With a real estate business, you can easily generate a passive income that can be almost tax-free (depending on where you are operating) while focusing on your career at the same time. Investing in real estate can pave the way for a steady income flow that is secure against inflation (both immediate and long-term), which is why good real estate investing courses are highly valuable for any individual seeking to increase their net worth.
However, before you jump into the technical, number-filled details of real estate investing, it’s a good idea to learn the basics of finance. The best real estate investing courses on this list will teach you all there is to know about the industry while also covering topics such as financial modeling and data analysis.
With the help of a good real estate course, you will learn the right strategies on how to invest in real estate, find real estate deals, and work on risk mitigation and rate-of-return calculations.
Whether you’re a total beginner, a seasoned veteran, or simply someone looking to find out more about the world of real estate investing, there will be a course on this list that matches your learning goals.
Best Real Estate Investing Courses
Best Overall Course: Fundamentals of Analyzing Real Estate Investments (Udemy)
New customer offer! Top courses from $14.99 when you first visit Udemy (expires 31 March 2024).
- Covers the fundamentals of real estate investment opportunities
- More comprehensive approach than other options
- Contains well-explained and easy-to-understand videos
- Easily accessible even for complete beginners
Cons
- Some of the course content could use an update for 2023
Designed to teach all aspects of real estate investing for beginners, “Fundamentals of Analyzing Real Estate Investments” is ideal for getting a comprehensive overview of approaches and techniques vital to real estate investing. While no prerequisite knowledge is required, you must have access to Microsoft Excel to follow the course.
This course covers numerous important topics in real estate investing, ranging from basic to more advanced. Here is a glimpse of what you can expect to learn:
- Evaluating properties for rental income potential
- Analyzing commercial real estate for investment opportunities
- Evaluating Airbnb real estate profitability
- Using investment models to evaluate real estate deals
This course is designed to be short but informative, and it manages to cover a wide range of real estate types within a single course. And, surprisingly, it’s not one of those online courses which only scratches the surface of dozens of topics without going deeper into any of them. You can expect to develop real competence in real estate investing from this course, as long as you study the material well.
You will be taught how to identify and evaluate various types of real estate investment opportunities and how to build a real estate financial model all by yourself. You will also learn to use various analytical and financial modeling tools to execute and analyze property deals.
On the negative side, much of the content was created in 2016, with the latest updates to the course implemented in 2020. While little has changed regarding the fundamentals of real estate investing, it makes some of the material feel a bit dated, and you’ll have the occasional broken link to a reference.
Overall, this online course is an excellent resource for beginners who want to learn real estate investing online. It does a fantastic job of covering all the fundamental knowledge one has to know in order to make money through real estate investing. Even though it is a few years old, we have not yet found a better course to give you a comprehensive introduction. For beginners and experts alike, this is one of the top real estate investing courses available.
Best for a Real Estate Career: Pathways to Property: Starting Your Career in Real Estate (FutureLearn x University of Reading)
- Good coverage of different career paths in real estate
- Engaging and practice-oriented format
- No prerequisite knowledge required
Cons
- No focus on real estate investing
Even if being an investor seems a bit too far-flung a notion at present, you may be interested in how the real estate market functions and the careers that are possible in the world of property. If so, “Pathways to Property: Starting Your Career in Real Estate” is an excellent place to start. This course offered by FutureLearn, together with the University of Reading, is an informative introduction to real estate with a focus on commercial property development and management.
A relatively short course (3 weeks, with an estimated 2 hours of coursework per week), the course manages to pack in a lot, including insights from professionals in the sector. It also teaches based on practical examples, including the development of the International Quarter London near the Olympic Park, which helps make the course engaging and practice-oriented.
The course will not make you an expert real estate investor, but it will give you a great appreciation for how real estate fundamentally works in practice. This will be beneficial whether you are looking at career opportunities in real estate management, you want to start investing in real estate, or you are looking to pursue higher studies in property or finance.
Best for Beginners: The Real Estate Financial Modeling Bootcamp (Udemy)
New customer offer! Top courses from $14.99 when you first visit Udemy (expires 31 March 2024).
- Short but informative
- Covers all the basics of financial modeling
- No prerequisite knowledge required
Cons
- Lacks in-depth explanations on the Excel formulas used
“The Real Estate Financial Modeling Bootcamp” on Udemy is ideal for beginners interested in mastering the basics of real estate financial modeling. As for our overall pick, the only requirement for taking this course is having access to Microsoft Excel, a software that will be used throughout the course material.
This online course teaches its students financial modeling for different categories of real estate investing, including:
- Multifamily real estate
- Retail real estate
- Commercial real estate
You will be taught how to build a real estate financial model from scratch with the help of Microsoft Excel. In addition to knowledge in real estate, this course will also teach you how to work your way around Microsoft Excel hotkeys and macros.
By the end of the course syllabus, you will have learned the basic Microsoft Excel tools and functions necessary for financial modeling. And, just as importantly, you will also learn to use various analytical and financial modeling tools to execute complex commercial transactions.
This real estate investing online course is compact but highly informative. The course material covers all the basic rules and tricks of real estate financial modeling in Excel and does an excellent job of teaching the fundamentals. For beginners, this is one of the best real estate investing courses available to quickly get started with your investments.
Best for Experts: Increasing Real Estate Management Profits: Harnessing Data Analytics (Coursera)
$100 USD off your first year of Coursera Plus Annual (expires 1 April 2024)
- University-led course
- Teaches advanced business analytics and Tableau skills.
- Capstone student projects are evaluated by real estate experts
- Teaches advanced financial modeling
Cons
- Content can be too technical for some beginners
- Time-intensive to complete
While “Increasing Real Estate Management Profits: Harnessing Data Analytics” does not have any explicit admission criteria, it’s the final part of a 5-course specialization on analytic techniques for business, and you would need to complete the other parts first. This is an advanced-level course and is best suited for students who have a basic understanding of data analytics and mathematics.
This course aims to teach real estate investing from a data-driven and analytical standpoint. Students who take this online course will learn numerous subjects, such as:
- Analyzing various business problems
- Extracting relevant data from MySQL databases
- Using extracted data for financial modeling and data visualization
- Estimating cash flows and profit margins
- Building analytical dashboards in Tableau
This course is sponsored by Airbnb, who provided input on its design. Moreover, the top ten performers on the course every year will have the opportunity to present their coursework to senior data scientists at Airbnb for feedback and discussion – an incredible learning opportunity from one of the most data-driven companies in the field of real estate.
All of these topics centered around data analysis might seem unnecessary for a simple real estate investing plan. However, in reality – having financial modeling skills is a huge advantage to any real estate entrepreneur. These skills will enable you to predict monetary gains and losses more accurately before actually investing any of your money. Don’t leave your real estate investments up to chance, and start using financial modeling in your business. This course will help you do so.
This is one of the best real estate investing courses for students with prior knowledge in business and mathematics. All the lectures covered in the syllabus are very valuable, and they aim to teach students not only real estate investing but also financial modeling and the fundamentals of investing and finance. As it’s part of a 5-course specialization, it’s rather lengthy in duration. However, the value gained from completing the course curriculum is impressive, making it an excellent choice for any budding real estate entrepreneur. In our opinion, this is the best real estate investing course for experts.
Real Estate Investing: Learn to Fix & Flip, Step by Step! (Udemy)
New customer offer! Top courses from $14.99 when you first visit Udemy (expires 31 March 2024).
- Beginner-friendly
- Easy to complete in a single day
- Real-life examples of evaluating real estate investments
Cons
- Low video quality at times
- Does not cover all the fundamentals of financial modeling
This course is one of the most beginner-friendly on this list, as it’s short, easy to follow, and has no real prerequisites for getting started. It’s best suited for students who want to start investing in real estate investment market, focusing on the “fix & flip” model.
This course starts off by teaching you about the ground rules and tricks for real estate investment. Then, you will be taught how to identify investors and successfully pitch real estate deals.
And, most importantly – the online course will take you through the primary strategies to “Flip and Fix” real estate. This means buying real estate at a low price, increasing its value through “fixing” it up, and then “flipping” it by selling it for a higher price. It’s one of the simplest but, at the same time, one of the most successful strategies in real estate.
While the course material is very short at 1.5 hours, it’s still valuable due to its low pricing and easy accessibility for complete beginners. It’s an excellent resource for beginners who want to learn how to invest in real estate.
We can’t recommend this course for advanced students who already have a solid framework of skills in real estate. However, we can certainly recommend it to newcomers who want to get a quick overview of the skills necessary for starting a “fix and flip” type of real estate investment business. It’s a good real estate investing course, but it’s not meant for everyone.
Commercial Real Estate Investing 101 (Udemy)
New customer offer! Top courses from $14.99 when you first visit Udemy (expires 31 March 2024).
- Goes deep into commercial real estate investing opportunities
- Non-technical course content
Cons
- Low audio and video quality at times
This course is aimed at those who want to begin a career in commercial real estate investments. It will explain how to analyze, manage, and purchase commercial properties, and it’s designed for beginners. The only prerequisite for this online course is having access to Microsoft Excel.
This real estate course covers numerous topics surrounding commercial real estate, such as:
- The basics of commercial real estate investment.
- Critical investment metrics for commercial real estate investing.
- How to achieve big commercial property deals
- Investing as a passive partner in investment deals
- Raising money from investors to buy commercial real estate
As you can see, all the course material is specifically targeted toward commercial real estate investments. In the course lectures, students are shown real-life scenarios and case studies, which make the syllabus easier to grasp for those who don’t have a technical background in finance or real estate investment.
This real estate course is best suited for beginner students wishing to build a career in commercial real estate. It requires no prior experience except a basic understanding of Microsoft Excel, which makes it another good choice for beginners.
The Real Estate Syndication Process (Udemy)
New customer offer! Top courses from $14.99 when you first visit Udemy (expires 31 March 2024).
- Course material is well put together and logical
- Covers commercial real estate investments from start to finish
Cons
- Unsuitable for other types of real estate besides commercial
People who already have a fundamental knowledge of real estate investment analysis are best suited for this course.
The primary focus of this real estate investing course is raising money for commercial real estate contracts. A variety of different approaches are covered, ranging from small to large commercial properties.
During the duration of the course, you will learn how to:
- Raise capital to buy commercial properties
- Diversify your commercial real estate investments
- Syndicate capital in order to purchase commercial real estate
All the course material is directed at investing in commercial real estate, so keep that in mind before enrolling.
This is another high-quality course from Justin Kivel, which explains the whole process of buying commercial properties from start to finish. If you have prior knowledge in real estate investment analysis and you are interested in profiting from commercial properties, then this will be one of the best real estate courses for you.
Real Estate Careers: Investing Vs. Agent Vs. Commercial (Udemy)
New customer offer! Top courses from $14.99 when you first visit Udemy (expires 31 March 2024).
- Provides a clear overview of real estate career paths
- Instructor is knowledgeable regarding real estate job opportunities
- Teaches core values of machine learning and oversight
Cons
- Course material is solely interview-based
- Only focuses on career advice rather than in-depth real estate analysis
This course will be beneficial to anyone who wants to start a career in real estate. It will help you understand how the different real estate roles differ and which ones could be suitable for you. This real estate investing course is best suited for beginners, and it has no requirements for admission.
The whole course is done in an interview format, where a real estate expert, Chris Stafford, is asked questions surrounding the topic of commercial real estate. Numerous topics are covered during the interview, such as:
- Benefits and downsides of various real estate career directions.
- How to become a better real estate salesperson and crack good deals.
- The mindset of a successful real estate investor
The whole interview is very captivating to watch, as it’s evident that Chris is an expert at his craft. It would have been desirable to have more text-based content in the course, though, as interviews are not as easy to remember and learn from as text-based lectures.
The instructor of this course uses his 20 years of real estate business experience to explain what the different real estate career directions look like and what are their advantages and disadvantages. It’s very insightful for people who are unsure about what role to take up in the real estate business and what kind of properties to deal with. For beginners looking to start a career, this is a very good real estate investing course.
