Where can I find beginning info on becoming an investor for real estate?

Looking into buying and reselling/renting foreclosed homes. Should I take some real estate courses, or even become an agent. I鈥檓 already majoring in business, but I鈥檓 still just scraping the surface of both of these interest鈥?So any advice would help considerably.

I would suggest not becoming an agent. I did and found that there are a lot of ethics restrictions on agents and the government is always watching over your shoulder. Plus if a buyer/seller at the other end of your transaction doesn't like what you've done and feels that you took advantage of him/her, everyone (the government) will always lean towards your adversary and give them the benefit of every doubt (at least that's the impression I got) because you are the "professional" with all the knowledge. I'm in Texas and I found that the Texas Real Estate Commission has a real bad attitude toward agents. You can see it and feel it in their policies and communications. In my case, becoming a real estate agent was pretty much a waste of time and money because I'm pretty much an independent kinda guy and I don't like government, especially the arrogant kind, so I never followed through. I found it just wasn't me. (I spent twenty years in the military and although I enjoyed the traveling, I had my fill of always being told what to do). Problem is, I hate to just stop my license now because of all the time and money I put into qualifying to be an agent.

I thought becoming a real estate agent would allow me to broker transactions on my behalf and still get a cut in commissions to reduce my costs but there are so many ethics regulations and requirements, I finally decided that tack, with its inherent conflict of interest, just wasn't worth the risk to my reputation. After all, there are a lot of crazy people out there. Without a real estate license as an agent, you will always be an "equal" with anyone you deal with. Not so as an agent.

Being a real estate agent doesn't allow you to do anything you can't do otherwise in buying and selling real estate. It'll give you personal access to agent information but you can get that by hiring someone else as your agent. Plus, you can have more than one agent working for you at the same time based on the contract you sign with them (there are contracts other than "exclusive" contracts (I learned that in real estate class). And real estate agents don't get paid unless the deal they find you goes through, so that could definitely be considered an advantage over trying to save money by doing everything yourself.

I admit what I learned in real estate class didn't hurt me, but you can take all the required real estate classes if you want to without actually becoming an agent.

Just my opinion. Hope this helps. Odds are you're not in Texas where I am but I don't imagine the other real estate commissions in other states are all that different when it comes to agent ethics and conflicts of interest. After all, people spend a big chunk of their income when they buy a house.

As far as investor courses, I'd suggest the Carleton H. Sheets course that you see advertised on TV infomercials. If you Google his name, you'll have no trouble finding his website. I bought it a long time ago and never completed it, but after becoming an agent I started reading it and found the info to be quite good in quality. I was impressed. I still didn't finish it, but what I did read was high quality, in my educated opinion. Plus he's been around for many many years and updates the course every few years, so he's definitely NOT a fly-by-night scammer.

Good luck!